Ashes, Ashes, They All Fell Down
by Mad-Hamlet
Summary: People once believed that when someone dies, a crow carries their soul to the land of the dead. But sometimes, something so bad happens that a terrible sadness is carried with it and the soul can't rest. Then sometimes, just sometimes, the crow can bring that soul back to put the wrong things right.
1. Dragged Across the Rubicon

Authors Notes: First off, this story is OLD! Second, it's a fusion in an altverse of an existing fanfic. Run your mind around that five times fast. Anyhow, the original story was called 'Sappo's Scrolls' by a popular at the time member of Buffy/Willow community called 'Shyfox'. I was a prereader as well as an author and, in the middle of my duties I had...**an idea.**  
Which I ran with.

With her permission. Her giggling evilly permission I might add.

You can search for the original if you like, I have no idea where it might be these days. If not, a brief summary: Buffy and Willow fall in love. Willow becomes magically, mystically, lesbian pregnant. Faith has a mad on, (Grrrr), Faith nearly kills them and the baby but loses (Tah dah!)  
In this universe though- she didn't.  
Enjoy.  
I dare you.

Disclaimer: All the BtVS belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. The Crow belongs to J.O. Barr

* * *

Scrolls.  
This history of the world is on scrolls.  
They tell us stories.  
Wars  
Triumphs  
Tragedies  
Scrolls tell us of heroes and villains.  
Magic, power, love.  
They leave us a legacy of these things.  
But scrolls are paper, children.  
And paper...BURNS!

With a flutter of wings it landed on the twisted branch of dead tree. Cocking it's head to the side it examined the surroundings. Graves stretched across night blackened grass, the gates far beyond sight. That was fine though, there were other gates to be opened here. To be opened tonight. That was why it had come after all.

Raising it's head a bit it took in the night sky. Over eons of duty it had experienced storms the likes of which mankind had never seen. Usually nights like these, with gates to be flung open, there was a storm. A cry of protest maybe from the heavens, but not tonight. The air was cool, the sky clear, no moon was overhead and so it was quite dark. This was fine too though, it had brought storms of it's own.

Small it was, black as well but old. So old..old enough to have known the watchmaker at the beginning. Given a task it was and that task it would do. Tasting the air it made sure it was in the right place, at the right time. Pain, a slight tinge dancing along the senses, like a foul scent just along the edges of perception. It really didn't have to do anything, the gate would be opened elsewhere. Simply by being it was enough, for now.

Taking wing briefly it fluttered to a grave stone. Not the gravestone of its interest. That was two over to the right. No, this headstone was chosen because there was a savory looking bug to feast on. It didn't get to eat as often as it liked. Oh yes, the the souls it consumed, those taken by vengeance, those were fine, but after an eternity or three..well..all things like a little diversity from time to time.

It made short work of the bug. Ruffling it's feathers a few times it stared at the grave two down to the right. It was almost time. Lifting one leg slightly it half opened it's wings and struck the wind..once..twice.. three times. That was enough.

Beyond sound and sight it heard and saw a gate swing open.

She'd be here soon.

Maybe there was another bug to be had beforehand?

Eyes open, eyes shut. Didn't make any difference, she couldn't see anything. She moved her hands in the dark slowly. Unsure of her surroundings. It payed to be cautious in totally unknown situations. Her hands didn't move far..less than three inches up before she hit an obstruction. Sides were the same. She was boxed in, she couldn't move, couldn't get out!

Trapped! She was trapped! She had to get out, it was more than panic, more than instinct, it was a directive.

Fingers curved into claws and tore at the soft material that smothered her, held her down. Soon it gave way to something stronger, something harder, but this didn't stop her efforts. She could feel it crumble underneath her assaults and if her fingers were bleeding, well..she couldn't see it and she certainly couldn't feel it so that was alright.

She pushed up. She had to get out, she was going fast, but it wasn't fast enough, she had to get out, up, out..now..had to go, had to move. It was pushing at her, from inside; a ceaseless, merciless drive. It was building inside with a terror and voice of it's own and if she didn't get out in time she would scream and scream and scream and never stop screaming..but she'd still be trapped.  
Trapped and screaming.

Forever.

And a girl clawed through silk, and wood, and earth with bare fingers that bled, healed, and tore open again to bleed some more. Just the girl, the wood, the earth, and the blood, in the dark.

It took wing briefly yet again to land on the headstone it had come for. All across the planes, endless realities with a million souls burning for release. Spheres floating each one alight with more flames of hate and pain and grief then there were stars in all of heaven's creation. Out of all these fires, a countless number of red, sweet cravings for vengeance, it had come here. To this miserable little mud ball. It had chosen her out of them all. Not because hers was the brightest, no there were others who's full fury could have set worlds alight.

But hers was simple. It could work with simple. Pain, not rage. That was its focus. Pain, with teeth and claw that grabbed souls and held them back, yet at the same time the soul had to want to leave. Most were stuck in loops of reliving the events of their entrapment over and over again. Mere phantasms, no, it couldn't help them. But she, she struggled against the shackles. She wanted to use it, her pain, as a weapon. It liked weapons. So it would give her a chance to utilize her agony, she would have her time, as its weapon. Also the bugs here were quite delicious.

Rapping the headstone with its beak once or twice it listened. Yes, there she was.

As the earth split from the pressure beneath and a white hand, bloody with torn nails, scrabbled at the crumbling ground for purchase, as red hair broke the night air and long closed eyes drank in the sight of the distant stars, as lips opened and let loose a scream of pain, like the first cry of a newborn infant, as all this happened it opened its beak, spread it's wings and let free a cry of it's own.

Oh yes, it had brought storms.

'Free.,' she thought. 'I'm free.' Collapsing to the ground she wept freely. She wasn't sure why, just it was something she had to do. She didn't know what had happened, who had taken her, why they had taken her, or even who they were.

'That's okay.' She mused. 'Buffy will take care of them.'  
She paused.

'Who's Buffy?'

That was interesting. She was pretty sure she knew a Buffy, was even more certain that said Buffy was very important to her. As she was to this Buffy person. However... she couldn't remember who Buffy was, why she was important, or...for that matter..who she herself was.

Sitting up, resting her weight on her arms she looked up into the night. 'Where..where am I?' She thought scratching her head. She glanced around.

'Great. The cemetery. Must be...' She glanced behind her, seeing where she'd come from. Her thoughts froze in her mind. It was odd, she knew where she was, and she knew what she beheld meant, but at the same time any personal recollections seemed to be...missing.

"A...a...grave?" she squeaked. The earth was torn apart, a great gaping maw through which splinters of a coffins hood, and the shredded silk lining of it's insides were scattered about the mound of dirt.

She was gasping now, one hand clasped to her chest, she felt like her heart was going to hammer through her ribcage, it was only after a moment thought she realized...her heart wasn't beating.

Hunching forward her fingers flew to her face hoping to deny her worst fears. But when she touched her brow and teeth she found the skin unmarred. Smooth and soft, her teeth were unchanged as well. Now she was really confused.

'What..the heck?' She wondered. 'I'm not a vampire, that's good news. But...'

She rolled over on her knees and scrambled across the grass to get a closer look at the headstone.

"A prank." She mumbled. "This has to be a prank of some sort, yeah that's it. Some joke that got a little out of hand."

She ran her fingers over the smooth stone. There was almost no light to read by but her eyes were adapting fast. Overhead a black bird watched with feigned interest. It knew what was happening, it was always like this at the beginning.

By touch she found the carved words, in the dim light, and following the pattern with her fingers she could make them out.

'W..' She spelled out in her mind. 'I...L...L...O...'

'Willow.' She hummed. That sounded familiar. She kept going.

'R..O..S...E...N...' Numb hands stopped. A numb mind stopped.

"Rosenberg." She whispered. "Willow Rosenberg."

Falling back on her butt she slowly crab-walked away from the headstone. "But...but...but I'm Willow Rosenberg." She said feebly.

She didn't know how she knew. But she did know.

"I'm...Willow Rosenberg." She said again. "And...and..if I'm Willow Rosenberg and I'm here to say I'm Willow Rosenberg, than that means I can't be dead, so the headstone is wrong, and I'm right so..so..who's grave..and..oh...no. No no no. I'm right and it's reality that's incorrect. That doesn't make any sense!"

It cocked it's head to the side again, staring at the girl intently. This had never happened before.  
Well, they always were confused but it had never seen anyone being so confused...like this. Rarely did 'something new' happen to it.

"So...so..I'll go to Giles. He'll know what to do." She pulled herself to her feet and turned to leave. She was pretty sure the exit was this way.

Now. It decided. It would happen now.

Without warning, and without sound, yet all across reality the crack was heard, her back arched, mouth open in a silent scream. Arms stretched out of their sockets, eye blazing forward, a tearing shriek of agony whipped across her mind.

_**"I'm not worked up." Willow denied innocently, as she was a hair's breadth away from the Slayer. "Yet." **_

She collapsed into a ball.

_**"I wish I remembered last night. I bet it was great." Willow said, shyly, a little embarrassed at her boldness. **_

The girl's hands spasmed.

_**"I'm going to have a baby." Willow whispered. **_

Another convulsion sent her body tumbling down the slight incline.

_**"You want me to give my baby up for adoption?!" Willow cried. **_

Pulling herself to her knees she wrapped her arms around her belly. A low moan escaped from her throat.

_**"Friends and Family, I am pleased to present to you Buffy and Willow Rosenberg-Summers. You may kiss the bride." **_

It watched her suffer. This was old territory now, but necessary.

_**Willow blinked, before a seductive grin moved over her lips. "Do you want some more?" **_

She flopped over onto her back, staring, yet not seeing, into the dark above.

_**"Do...you...trust...me?" the Slayer sounded out again, waiting for a response. **_

She lay on the black grass, underneath a glass sky. Nearby a black bird watched her burn. Overhead dark clouds quickly gathered. Neither of the dark pair noticed, the bird as it didn't care, the girl, because she was lost within.

_**"That's okay." Willow said, smiling in relief as her wife got closer. "Just hurry up and untie me so we can get...BUFFY!" **_

"No." The girl whispered to herself.

_**"Looks like I killed you this time, B." **_

"Buffy." She whispered.

_**"I may be dying." Buffy choked on a mist of blood, looking directly into the deep brown eyes. "But I'm taking you with me." **_

_**The brown eyes smiled. "Wanna bet?" With a turn and a twist Faith tossed the blonde Slayer over her hip to slam into the concrete floor. "Check this out B, you're gonna love it." **_

_**Faith bent over to pick up the knife, still wet with blood. Faith licked the blade with the tip of her tongue, smearing a track of the crimson liquid over her lips. **_

_**"Just in case Red never told ya B." She smiled a bloody grin. "You taste great!" **_

_**She turned her attention back to Willow who was curled up in the corner. "Don't go nowhere Preggie-Red, party's just gettin' started, y'know?" **_

_**"Buffy." Willow whimpered. "Get up Buffy, please. Please get up Buffy." **_

_**Fighting a red haze that was threatening to cloud her vision Buffy stretched her hand in Willow's direction. "Wi..Willow." She gasped. She could see Willow. Scared and alone, coming up behind her was Faith. Taking her time, striding across the concrete with a cocky grin and sexy swivel of the hips. **_

_**"Buffy." Willow moaned and reached out her own hand. They were so close. Centimeters. Despite all reality to the contrary the Redhead believed if she could just touch Buffy's hand, everything would be okay. That everything could be okay, if only she could reach her. "Buffy. Help me." **_

_**A spiked heel drove through the top of the Slayer's hand pinning it to floor. "Ah ah ah." Faith clucked her tongue. "No rest for the weary. Sorry." Buffy glared at the dark Slayer through clenched teeth. **_

_**Faith blew her a kiss. **_

_**She looked back at Willow. Bending over she wiped the flat of the blade across the wiccan's cheek. "Now then Red. Where were we?" **_

The girl bolted upright off the grass. Hands pressed to her temples she shook her head, trying to block out the images. "No. No. No. No..."

Darker heavens than had been there a second before rumbled, and chain lightning lept from sky to sky, to ground. The sky was lit up for only a breath of time, yet her eyes were not shut and she could see.

Willow Rosenberg-Summers Buffy Ann Roseberg-Summers and their daughter Rest Well. We Never Knew Your Name But The Lord Does Child And He Holds You Now As He Does All Mothers and Children.

"BUUUUUFFFFFFFFFFFFFFYY!"

The bird glanced at the screaming girl, its charge. Its mission. Its eyes turned heavenward as a fresh bolt tore a jagged streak across the sky. Showtime.

She ran.

Unseeing, uncaring, unheeding. The rain had come upon the tail of the storm, great sheets of water that blinded her, or would have, if she'd been looking where she was going. Hurtling down the streets cars swerved around her, horns blaring but she didn't hear them or care. Locked inside her head she was, as the last seconds of her former life were hammered home with the grace and subtlety of a hammer.

With a final incoherent shriek she fell to her knees on the yellow double line, marking the median of the road. Her hands fumbled at the front of the dress she had been buried in. Jagged, hooked fingers tore through the soaked material, coated with grime and muck. Buttons went flying as she rent the fabric apart. With impeccable timing a fresh shriek of lightning tore across the sky leaving rage in it's wake. From the flash of illumination the appearance of a grotesque, puckered scar was clear. It ran along the base of her belly, just above the beginning of her pelvis. In a wicked, twisted, concave arc, like the smile of hell it laughed at her. It marred her flesh, corrupted her smooth belly.

A belly, she understood at that instant, that shouldn't have been smooth. That hadn't been smooth the last time her hands had rested on it.

A final hoarse scream, a protest, a denial of what was all too obvious shouldered its way past her lips to be lost in the peals of thunder that shook the heavens.

"GIVE ME BACK MY BABY!"

Had her rage and pain been palpable, a living, coherent thing, it would have been flung outward in a wave that would have left the earth barren for miles in all directions, sent trees and dirt and cars around like toys. As it wasn't...

He had had a long day. The boss had been a real bastard, his wife was dealing with 'that time', and to cap it off thanks to his son's insistence at playing his 'music' at teeth rattling levels of volume he hadn't been getting much sleep. Now this storm...

"Perfect ending to a perfect day." He yawned. "Never seen it this bad."

He reached for the cup holder and the lukewarm cup of coffee that rested there. He only took his eyes off the road for a second. Really.

His head bouncing off the air bag was his first clue. The echoing crunch of metal and bone was his second. Instincts kicked in and his feet drove the break down with all the force he could muster. As tires shrieked and the rear of the car came around in a vicious fishtail he could hear the rolling thumps of whatever he had hit bouncing across the roof. There were a few dents that marked its passage too.

She hadn't seen it coming. One second she was screaming, the next a blinding sheet of noise and light hammered into her side tossing her up and over. She rolled across the steel metal as it passed underneath. Her mind, ever helpful, informed her of what was probably happening.

'A car.' She thought. 'I got hit by a car.'

The tumbling slowed down to a crawl, though happening in an instant, it seemed to take forever.

'I got hit by a car.' She repeated internally. 'Well..that's good. That means I'll die. Again. Maybe..maybe Buffy and..our... maybe they'll be waiting for me.'

The edge of the roof came upon her and time sped up so she hit the pavement with a jarring thud. Fresh pain crawled across muscles and limbs, those that hadn't been shredded by the tearing metal that had collapsed around her thighs. The pain was good though. It was here and now, not from the past, now she could deal with it, or it could deal with her.

She rested her head on the asphalt waiting for the darkness to close over her, to take her somewhere else.

Pounding footsteps, splashing across the fresh puddles of water disturbed her rest.

"Oh Jesus. Oh Christ. Oh Jesus" A voice said. "Are you alright?"

'Scuze me.' She thought. 'I'm trying to die here.'

"Young lady? Are you hurt? Can you hear me? Say something! Anything please!" The voice was desperate and reluctantly, she opened her eyes.

"Oh thank God." He was young. The man, around his late twenties but he seemed far older. Tired lines marked his eyes and circled his mouth, his eyes seemed a little lackluster.

"Don't thank God." She croaked.

"What?" He stopped his nervous pacing.

Pulling herself so she was sitting upright she examined herself. There wasn't a bruise anywhere, and other than the pain already feeding on her, her fresh wounds were not even a memory.

"Don't thank God." She repeated. "He doesn't deserve it."

She slowly got to her feet. 'I'm a little woozy.' She thought. 'But I'm fine. Why?'

"Excuse me." She said and brushed the man aside.

"Hey where ya goin lady? The cops are gonna be here any second, we gotta tell em' something!" The man's arms were flung out helplessly.

She turned her head slowly and he saw her eyes. He hadn't before. He really wish he never got the chance. Wherever she was, inside, it made all the hells on earth look like a picnic. He'd never come face to face with such as this. Few living had, and those that did never forgot.

"I..." Her mouth hung open for a second and she blinked a few times.

"Ma'am?" The man whispered respectfully. "Can..is there anything I can do? Can I help you somehow?"

She tried to remember how to smile. She really did. A lifetime of manners, even after being dead, did not abandon her easily. But she couldn't. She simply couldn't.

"No one can help me, thank you." She shook her head slightly. "Excuse me, I really have to be going." She took a shuffling step.

"Where?" The man asked quietly.

With a sigh she turned and faced him one last time. "To find out why I can't die."

She ambled off into the night, the storm had passed but the rain still fell.  
The man couldn't be sure why, but he was pretty confidant that if he dared to taste some of the water on his cheeks, it would have been salty. He made a promise to himself to hug his son and kiss his wife, to make sure they knew how much he really loved them, just as soon as he got home.

She moved through the night, going nowhere. Just away. The rain fell, the wind howled, but she didn't feel the cold or hear the air. She was going.

It followed from above. Along the night winds, it didn't need to move it's wings much, the currents were more than capable of carrying it's light, but ancient, frame.

She had left quickly. Not followed like so many before, so now it had to follow her.

She finally weakened, and, leaning heavily against a tree, allowed herself to slide down it's trunk till she sat upon the muddy floor of the woods. It lit upon a nearby branch and peered down at her. There was no time for this, she had to use her pain, harness it, become a weapon or it would have wasted its efforts. It opened its beak and cried into the night.

Her head came up wearily as she looked for what had made the sound disturbing the quiet of the forest. She saw, perched overhead, through the gloom of the rain, a large black bird. Its wet feathers reflected what little light fell through the canopy. It held a presence, a sense of majesty, midnight plumage and midnight eyes. A beak as black as it's feathers completed the appearance.

"You.." She said quietly. "You're not a normal bird are you?"

She wasn't surprised when it nodded in an awkward way. Bobbing its entire body in a gross caricature of a human expression.

"And you know why I'm here."

Again a nod.

"And why I can't die?"

For a third time it nodded.

"So." Fresh tears began to leak around her eyes, over white cheeks, as pain again forced itself to be made manifest. "Tell me why I'm here. What am I supposed to do? Why did this have to happen? Why can't I DIE! Tell me...please..please tell me.."

It did nothing, merely stared at her with old, old, black eyes.

She crumpled completely to the earth, sprawling, loose and weak, crying, occasionally screaming as again the memories of what had been, and could never be undone, assaulted her.

And it rained.

On the Girl.

On the Crow.

On the Earth.

It rained.


	2. Guizer

There were three crows, sat on a tree.  
They're as black as crows can be.  
One of them said to the mate:  
What shall we do for grub to eat?  
There's an old dead horse in yonder's lane,  
Whose body has been lately slain.  
We'll fly upon his old breast bone,  
and pluck his eyes out one by one.  
- A traditional balad

You Call me Trickster  
You Call me Judge  
You Call me Carrion Eater  
You Call me Messenger

She strode up the sunlit path to her small, three room home. The one she shared with her roommate, her friend, her sister.

Her lover.

The signs of the sudden storm the night before were still evident. Branches, leaves..even the occasional bough, all lay on the ground in mute testimony to the power unleashed the night before. The news was full of reports. 'Experts' with explanations and idiotic commentary on how 'surprising' the whole thing had been.

She hadn't been surprised. She'd known it was coming. For the past few weeks a charge had been building. She could feel it. All her sisters had been able to. A sense of expectation, of potential, of power, beyond magic or reality and far above the constant level of energy that was flung outward from the Hellmouth. Last night it had finally happened.

Just what had happened she wasn't sure. Cleansing rituals had not worked, scrying, pleading with powers, even invocations had done nothing to deter whatever that had come, from coming. The only clue given at any attempts at divination had been an odd sound. As of something soft whipping through the air. Like feathers on wings.

The significance of the day was not lost on the young woman, supernatural occurrences aside. And indeed the storm had been just that, or, more accurately, the byproduct of a supernatural event.  
The evening before had marked the third anniversary of...

Even now, three years later she couldn't really give that event a name, a label, in her mind. Was it either because it was too horrible to think of or was it that giving it a name might numb her to the tragedy? She couldn't say, but in either respect, she couldn't actually give the event a name.

Her time with them had been so short, and very painful. Despite both factors against, she treasured the memories, both for her folly, and how it had taught her and made her better.

_**"Let her go," Willow said simply. "She'll never do anything like this again. Will you, Tara?" **_

Looking back on it, the young woman decided, she must have completely out of her mind to do what she had done, or tried to do.

_**"You have my word," Tara nodded. "I know better now than to break up what was meant to be. Keep the book, Willow. Don't let anyone use that spell again, it's too p-powerful." As she started for the door, she looked at Buffy, and said, "You are so lucky." **_

Of course in that context she had been wrong, like usual. And it had been Buffy, ironically, who had been correct.

_**"I know it," Buffy agreed, too happy to be reunited with Willow to stay angry at Tara. "You'll find someone. Just give it time." **_

Yes. She decided, walking up the steps that lead to her front door. Buffy had been right after all. Turning her key in the lock, she was pleased to find the latch undone, that meant her lover was home from classes already.

Tara Maclay stepped through the front door. "Amy? I'm home."

'The human mind is a funny thing.' The girl decided.

She hadn't moved since collapsing in the rain the night before. The sun had risen, the clouds moved on, occasional birds flew from branch to branch singing. Looking for breakfast and singing. Pecking through mud and filth and earth looking for things that themselves oozed through mud and earth and filth. Called it home. Singing birds looked for these things to eat. And sang while doing so.

Except the one she belonged too. Oh it hopped, and pecked, and scratched, and searched for flesh among the mud like the rest, it just had the grace to not act all pretty while doing so.

'Yes.' She repeated mentally. 'The mind is a strange thing. Even dead ones.'

Even now the pain and hate and rage bit at her, gnawed on the insides with eternal teeth but she didn't care to scream, or cry any longer. She had 'adapted'. She had grown 'accustomed' to the tearing and the tears. She had 'come to grips' with what had been done and how it could not be unmade.

Like her baby had been unmade.

In a flash of steel and biting white, her daughter had been undone.

But she couldn't cry anymore at the thoughts. She had 'accepted' it. So why was she crying again then?

More time passed on by as it is its wont to do. Singing, pecking, birds marked its passage as they continued plowing the muddy earth. She saw none of this though, she had not seen much at all since her rebirth. Except certain things, played over and over across the mind's eye, each time a little longer, each time a little clearer. Over and over the memories played on, teasing with more to show, cutting with sharper edges.

_**"Red, this is going to hurt you a lot more than it will me." Faith smiled over the blade that hovered in front of her eyes. "Reconsidered, I realize it won't hurt me at all. I'll probably have a hell of time cleaning the stains up...but...I think it'll be worth it." **_

Then came pain. Pain in memory is odd, she never had been ever to really remember it before. Many times she had recalled falling off her bicycle when she was a child. She never had managed to remember what it felt like when her head had impacted with the concrete though. This pain was different.

Every unholy second was lovingly recorded in her mind. From the initial sliding sensation of white lightning piercing her, the coppery taste of blood flooding the back of her own throat, to the stomach churning feeling of fingers fumbling around _inside, _to the very ending of Faith's shriek of triumph. By then, thankfully, she had grown too weak to keep her own eyes open.

She could hear though.

A wet sound of something soft hitting something hard. At violent speeds.

Of her labored breathing.

Faith's laughter, she remembered that too. Above Faith's cackle though she remembered..hearing...Buffy. A light whisper, barely capable of floating across the space separating them. But she heard.

"I'll wait for you...Willow. I'll wait for you...both."

Then Faith. "Well B, had my fun, don't need you anymore do we?"

The sound of flesh parting before steel again, grating across bone.

Then she hadn't even heard her wife's breathing at all.

"And to wrap things up." Faith had chuckled. "I'll be nice. I'm feeling too groovy, too shake your thing oh funky one good, to be mean. I'll do you quick Red. Call in a consolation prize."

Fingers had wrapped themselves in her hair, warm steel bit her neck.

Her last thought's, from before, came to her then.

'It's not fair. It's not fair. It shouldn't have been this way. It's not fair, it's not fair..It shouldn't have been this way, I won't let it end like this. I won't! I won't! I wo-'

A sharp jab in her side snapped her back to the now.

It stood before the girl, abyssal eyes unblinking in the dawning sun, reflecting nothing, absorbing all. She looked at it, it looked at her.

They stayed like this for some time. Not moving, around the them the day continued to pass, the woods became more alive as those who lived within were woken from their slumber by mornings progress.

The girl pulled herself to her feet, breaking eye contact with the black bird that stood in front of her.

It studied her carefully. She had not been like the others; confused, yes, suffering, yes..but that burning rage so common in all the others. That was lacking. She did not follow it, she did not understand it. It hadn't been mistaken had it? This had never happened before. Ever.

The girl rested her forearm on the trunk of a great tree then rested her forehead on her arm. She had loved the woods once. She would come here, sometimes with her other, her lover, her wife, and they would touch the trees.

_**"Can't you feel it Buffy?" **_

_**"Uh...bark?" **_

_**"No ya dummy, life! It's so powerful here. This one in particular..he's old you know. But strong and full of living. I can feel it." **_

_**And she would lay her hands on the rough surface and feel the deep, slow thrumming of ancient hearts. **_

_**"Are you sure I'm doing this right Willow?" Buffy had asked. **_

_**"All you have to do it touch the tree Buffy." **_

_**"It's too rough, isn't there anything else I can touch?" She had pouted when saying that. Sticking out her lower lip just a bit, just enough so, if she was inclined Willow could have caught it between her own. "Something soft? Something warm?" **_

_**"I...think something can be arranged." The stillness of that night have been briefly, quietly, interrupted with the rustle of clothing dropping to the forest floor. **_

_**"Mmm..very soft." **_

The girl didn't cry anymore. Shadowed under the canopy of leaves, face downcast, knowing that memory too was lost, that she couldn't feel the trees anymore, that she couldn't feel the touch anymore, that her connection was lost, that her love was lost, realizing all this she didn't cry.

Lips, unused to such hateful actions followed commands anyway. A snarl, a curve of flesh that bared teeth. Fingers against ancient wood curled once more and tore bark, crushing it with enough strength to punch the splinters through the flesh. What she took from the tree she returned to the forest with blood.

And she didn't cry. She spoke. One word.

"Faith."

It watched from nearby, perched on a rotten log; ignoring, for the moment a fat grub it had revealed choosing instead to watch her.

It was about time.

"Amy?" Tara called into the house.

"Kitchen." Came the reply.

Kicking off her shoes, and setting her books on a nearby table she made her way past the one plaster wall that separated the main room from the kitchen. Amy was standing in front of a large pot in which...something...was bubbling. It didn't smell like any concoction Tara recognized though.

Amy's hands were on her hips and she was glaring at the stuff.

"Lunch?" Tara asked sliding her arms around Amy's waist and staring down at the bowl over the brunette's shoulder.

"In theory." Amy quipped. "But I'm not willing to eat it."

"Well, if the chef isn't having any..." Tara murmured.

"Order pizza?" Amy asked resting her hands atop of Tara's.

With a loud WHOOMPH the material in the pot caught fire.

"Let's go out." Amy answered her own question while backing away quickly.

The sun was setting as the young couple worked there way back to their abode.  
An orange glow lit the horizon sending a cascade of colors that deepened in hue to the black of night as it swept across infinity.

Tara walked with both hands on her belly, taking little tiny steps, her expression wasn't very happy.

"I can't believe I let you talk me into trying pineapples on my pizza." She groaned.

"Well...you're the vegetarian in the family." Amy protested. She was walking backwards so she could see Tara as they went home. She stopped, put one hand on Tara's shoulder and used the other to cup the blonde's chin and tilt her head up so they were eye to eye.

"I'll rub your belly when we get home." Amy whispered.

Tara smiled shyly. "That would probably help."

"No more pineapples?" Amy returned the smile.

"Well... if you promise to take care of me after..maybe." Tara's eyes broke the contact.

Amy noticed a shape in the sky flying in their direction, it seemed to soak up what little light in there was, absorbing it, consuming it. It let out a cry.

Tara noticed where her lover was starting. "What is it?" She asked looking in the same direction.

"A crow." Amy answered. "I think."

She paused, a thoughtful expression on her face. "If I recall correctly..." She murmured quietly.

"Okay." She said pointing at the setting sun. "That's west..." She turned to the few stars that were in the sky. "I think that's the North Star." She said pointing overhead..so..it was approaching us from the south.

"Oh." Tara said quietly. "I think I know where your going with this..uh..a crow from the south means a friend is coming..doesn't it? Or is that Southeast?"

Amy shook her head. "No. Southeast means evil. Misfortune."

"Let's hope it was South then." Tara replied quickly. "I'd rather not have evil visiting us."

Amy hooked her arm through Tara's. "I don't want anyone visiting us." She said simply.

Walking in step for a minute Tara finally took the bait. "Why not?"

"I have bellies to rub!" Amy was wearing a triumphant smirk.

"Oh. Right. Ow my tummy! My poor poor tummy."

The walk home went swiftly. The actual sun had dipped below the edge of the world by the time they reached the walkway leading to their front door. Both had seen, and knew, too much to be foolish enough to dawdle about in the night.

Amy had Tara in a playful headlock as they walked up the path. "Now I have you girly, and your little dog too!" She cackled.

"Oh no!" Tara squealed playing along. "A big, mean, witch has me prisoner! Whatever shall I do?"

Letting Tara's head go Amy pulled her up so they were eye to eye, faces only an inch apart. "Suffer." She whispered.

"Not likely." Tara whispered back before sliding through the rest of the space, intending to go for a kiss. Amy's lips, not being where she expected them to be, didn't allow that. Opening her eyes Tara saw Amy staring over her shoulder with a nervous look on her face.

"Amy? What is it?" She turned around herself. The front door of their cozy little home was slightly ajar. The crack of darkness from within, in the greater darkens without, made the cozy factor less so. Now the house appeared...hungry.

"Did...did you leave the door unlocked?" Amy whispered.

"No of course not." Tara whispered back. "Should we call the police?"

"If it's what we're afraid of, what help would they be?" Amy replied. "Open the door Tara."

"What?" Tara nearly shouted spinning to face her love she saw that Amy's eyes were blackened over. The air around her was heavy and potent with raw mayhaps. Certainties and absolutes that had been forged in the maw of creation were not any more, at least in the area around the brunette witch.

"Open the door." Amy repeated through gritted teeth. "Whatever it is, I'm ready."

The door creaked open slowly, casting long shadows of the two girls down the front hallway, born of what little light remained in the heavens. These newborn were quickly swallowed by the greater darkness within.

As her eyes adjusted to the inner darkness she began to make out details. Silhouettes of furniture, the lamp, the fresh flowers on the tiny table between the sofa and the television. And on the sofa...

The little light struggled feebly across the room, highlighting red hair and pale skin. A face, half lit, half dark lifted itself upright and green eyes weakly stared into brown. "T..Tara?" A broken voice croaked. "H..he..help me."

"No." Tara whispered. "W..W...Willow..it..it c-can't be.." Terror took form and forced her incapable of movement. Her mind no longer was there, her soul twisting in some hellish gale from inside that rent walls and barriers, half healed wounds tore apart and bled anew as she beheld what had never been hers yet she had loved.

"Tara!" A commanding voice bellowed from behind her. "Move!"

The sharp command snapped her free and she dove to the side. The girl on the sofa had half gotten to her feet, one hand held out placating, pleading for time, time she would not be given.

"Nanshe I call thee to judge before me!" Amy snarled out. The power lifted her off the ground and half seen whispers of form began to whirl around her.

"Utu bind this mockery of flesh and friend!" The eldritch light blazed brighter and flew faster about the witch in concentric circles.

"Ninisinna heal this degraded form and let the soul rest, may you three banish this cthonic blasphemy!" The spell ended with a shriek of rage and as the light focused about Amy's outstretched hands the the redhead flung her hands up in a vain attempt to ward off a very tear in reality from rending her apart.

Warped space leaped across the room to devour the intruder, it spun and about her body, invading the body, burrowing within the flesh, trying to find the corruption and annihilate it. She screamed. Back arched, light blazing from behind her eyes, from out her widened mouth, it blazed and burned and tore.

And faded.

Leaving her gasping but still very much there in the living room of the two witches.

The redhead slumped to the ground, supporting herself on the edge of the sofa.

"Okay." Amy growled out. "That didn't work. Time for the big guns."

Tara, still lost in a haze could only look on in fear as her lover again took flight, the power and rage boosting her already formidable abilities.

A sharp rapping on the window disturbed the conflict before any more escalation was possible.

Three heads turned to the window. Back lit by the the last golden rays of the sun, as if ringed in flame, on the sill, stood a crow. Its black eyes peered through the glass, swinging first to the redhead still sprawled upon the floor, she didn't raise her head to meet its stare. Then it's eyes moved to the brunette who was wrapped in an aura of rage and power. She had black eyes of her own, a marking, a symbol of her heritage and what she was. But her's were nothing. A newborn fawn, mewling on the forest floor. They melted away before ancient, obsidian, eyes. As her power faded she landed back on the ground no longer buoyed against gravity's will. Finally the black, feathered, head turned to the blonde. She too lay on the ground, not having moved since flinging herself there in obedience to her lover's commands. She met it's eyes, briefly before looking down the floor in supplication.

"Amy, c..could you please open the window?" Tara said quietly.

"What?" Amy hissed, her eyes never leaving the black bird on the other side.

"Open the w..window." Tara repeated.

"Tara, I really don't..." Amy began.

"Do it." Tara quietly insisted. "I..I think.." And her voice drifted away as, almost against her will she looked from the redhead to the bird and back to the redhead.

A look of such sadness passed over her features. Amy didn't understand what was happening. She could only watch as silent tears slid down Tara's face and were soaked up by the fuzzy blue rug that lined the floor. A powerful impulse swept over her, she wanted to swoop down and hold the blonde. To comfort and heal, whatever was wrong. To help her forget ...forget..forget whatever terrible something this was she was seeing.

She took a step, arms beginning to outstretch when Tara's open palm, held up as a clear 'stop' command, interrupted her.

"Now now." Tara whispers huskily. "We...we don't have time. I'm fine. Really. Just, open the window. P..please."

Without a word Amy stepped around where Tara still lay and reached for the latch binding the window shut. Carefully standing out of the way she eased the window up. It was slightly warped with age, and she couldn't open it without moving directly in front of the glass. Using both her arms she finally managed to lever it open. Stepping quickly away from the window her eyes nervously never left the crow sitting on the other side. It didn't move until Amy, carefully walking backwards, had reached Tara's side. She knelt down and enveloped the blond witch is a hug from behind, both witches eyes though never stopped watching the bird.

The bird, with a hop, landed on the inside of the sill. It looked away from the girls on the floor, ignoring their concerned stares. It spread its wings and effortlessly flew across the room landing on the redheads shoulder. She didn't move or in any way acknowledge it's presence. The silence is this dark room was only broken by her heavy breathing.

Turning slightly on it's new found perch the crow again faced the two mortals. It eyed them, occasionally cocking its head to one side. As if wondering if they were worth all the bother it had to go through.

Shrugging off Amy's embrace Tara slowly climbed to her knees. Clasping her hands before her, but not taking her eyes off the black bird she quietly and solemnly spoke.

Badb Catha I greet you.  
Judge I name you.

Morrigan I greet you.  
Carrion Eater I name you.

Coronis I greet you.  
Mother I name you.

Chimata-No-Kami I greet you.  
Crossroads Walker I name you.

One Crow counted, One Crow stands  
Living Echos walks across the lands.

Crow. I name you.  
Crow. I greet you.

If it was surprised, or gratified, or anything whatsoever it gave no sign. It was too old, too wise, for that. It was bit interested to find one who knew some its names. Though, names, as far as it was concerned were mere boxes. Boxes created by mortals in an attempt to comprehend something beyond their ken. It knew where the bones of empires lay, empires that had been completely devoted to it. And it did not mourn them, or care about them even now. So why would it care about mere names? It had a duty to preform. That was all that mattered.

"Badb Catha?" Amy whispered. Understanding, or the bare minimums of it, skittered across her mind. It could see that as her face took on a similar pall of fear and sorrow as the blonde now wore.

So. They both had an inkling of an idea. They were not the normal mortals who found themselves snared in the ensuing drama. Usually there had to be explanations. For some reason that always happened. Those who were brought back always seemed to find a mortal to assist them. It never had understood why though these two seemed to know more than most. Perhaps that would be a boon.

It remained silent on its chosen roost as the redhead simply...was.

The sun had set on the first day. There were as many left as needed though. Vengeance would be served. In a dark room three girls sat in silence. A crow, perched on the shoulder of a redhead also did nothing to disturb the quiet.

Finally, drawing in a shaky breath the girl who had come seeking help, spoke.

"What am I?"


	3. Gravity is Working Today

Call Crow Call...

Call, crow, call in the dead air of the day  
call from the brass of the sky;  
strike your sour note against the heat  
of the unmoving midday.

Are there eyes to pick,  
live tongues to eat,  
hearts to rend and tear,  
entrails for your delight?

here, quick, take mine  
before fate relents,  
marks up their value again  
a point or two on the market...

Call in the dead of day, crow,  
call from the brass of the sky,  
strike your lonely note  
against the midday's unmoving heat.

Call, crow, call.

- Ian Mudie

"What am I?" The girl said.

In the darkness of the room within, greater then the darkness of the night without, no one had an answer.

"What am I?" She wailed again. "Why am I here? What happened to us?"

She sat huddled in the corner of the sofa, feet curled beneath her, the ragged scraps of her death attire still barely covering her, the shards of modesty lying about her, mocking the appearance of something 'human'.

It peered down at its messenger from it' place on her shoulder. This would not do. Where there was supposed to be fire there was only void, where there was supposed to be rage there was only pain. Pain alone was not enough. Perhaps she would have to go back, to the Earth, back to the grave, back to the shackles that had bound her.

Tara crawled across the floor on her hands and knees and pulled herself into a sitting position on the end of the sofa opposite the girl. Amy moved up behind her, curling up on the floor at Tara's feet. She pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, as if to ward off a chill. There was no escaping this cold though.

Tara reached out a hand, tentatively, slowly across the space separating her from their 'guest'.

"Are you crazy?" Amy hissed seeing what Tara was about to do. "Don't touch her!"

"I have to." Tara whispered back. "And don't talk so loud, she'll hear you."

"No you don't." The girl said. "I can hear you fine. I'm dead, not deaf." She looked up at the two of them. "Tara."

"Willow." Tara replied, pulling her hand back quickly.

"She's not Willow!" Amy protested loudly. "She can't be Willow. Willow is dead! They're all dead!"

A memory..the ghost of memory flashed across the girls mind. She smiled slightly, more of a smirk and in the darkness, something truly horrid to witness. "A better one than I said this but it still fits. I may be dead; but I'm still pretty."

"Oh Goddess!" Amy shuddered. She leaped to her feet and grabbed Tara's shoulder. "We gotta get outta here." She gave a hard tug.

"No!" The redhead cried. "Don't leave, please!"

Tara didn't move for a few seconds before resting her hand on top of Amy's. "It's alright." She said quietly.

"It's not alright!" Amy insisted. Her eyes were beginning to tear over. "This..this thing is here, in our home claiming to .. it's wrong. All this is wrong and she shouldn't be..she can't be..please..please please Tara if you love me get on your feet and run!"

Tara had never heard Amy beg for anything in her life; but she still didn't move.

"Yes." Tara said quietly. "Yes it is wrong, the fact that she is here, that Willow-"

"That isn't Willow!" Amy practically screamed.

"It is Willow." Tara repeated quietly. "And it is wrong that she's here, that's why she's here. So things won't be wrong anymore." She turned to the Crow. "That's it isn't it? It's the reason isn't it?"

It just looked at them.

"You..." The redhead swallowed and tried again. "You know why I'm here then?"

"Maybe." Tara shrugged slightly.

"What happened? To us..to..." The girl gestured helplessly.

The question punched through the hasty barriers Tara had erected in her mind. This ..sitting before her the woman she had once loved, still loved. Or at least loved her memory. Even, on warm evenings laying in the arms of Amy she would dream of those short, short moments when, for a bare instant, Willow had been hers.

At the cost of someone's body, her morals, her honor, and what little sense of self-respect she had had back then. Amy was helping her build herself back. Had been.. after hearing what had become of her first love..

'I can't, she's not, I can't, she's not, I can't, she's not...' Tara's mind was locked in a loop of denial. Even though having moments before argued against Amy's claims, she had not, up till now, really truly believed. 'The question..I have to answer the question because I want to help her. No..no don't think about, can't think about it; it will hurt. Must help! No, the hurt.. Oh Goddess, she's _here _and it really happened, never really...help her..but that will hurt...no no no no no no...'

"Tara?" Amy knelt down and put her hand on the other wiccan's upper arm. "Tara honey?"

Tara was not very responsive. Her eyes stared at the redhead still curled up in the far corner. The two of them were staring at each other. The former seemingly lost within her mind and the latter, simply lost.

The redhead reached slowly toward Tara, a look of concern playing across her features only to have her hand slapped away.

"Don't touch her!" Amy hissed at the recoiling girl. "Don't you dare touch her."

Again a field of obsidian slid across the witches eyes and the air around her grew heavy, again curled lips began to snarl out ancient words that called upon buried powers. The redhead whimpered.

It fluttered from the girls shoulder and landed on Tara's knee, the blonde still did not respond but it's present perch brought it exactly at eye level to where Amy still knelt upon the floor, fists clenched, energies just beginning to make themselves known. Once again ancient met fawn in a contest of wills. Black on black, raw magic versus ancient, ancient ..patience.

The Crow stared.

"No." Amy hissed. "I defy you. I don't care your reasons of justifications. She doesn't deserve this. She didn't do anything. It's not her. I defy you. Do you hear me? You're just a bird..a...a feather duster that doesn't know it's place. I defy you!"

The Crow stared.

"I..I have powers." Amy continued. "I'm not a weakling. I'll crush your heart out. End your legacy. Destroy this thing you've perpetuated on my Tara. Willow's dead. She's resting, asleep. This is not her and you better let this thing go, let her free or I'll..I'll kill you. I'll kill you real bad. So...Go DO it!"

The Crow stared.

"Just go." Amy's instructed. "Go away. Take her with you, we won't interfere. We..we won't tell anybody if that's what you want but please..go away."

The Crow stared.

The power of the witch melted away, vanishing back to the ether. "Please..please please go away." Amy now sobbed. Her normal brown eyes, her sense of self being swallowed by the sharp, deep, pit in its own vision.

The Crow stared.

Amy broke away and held a hand, palm out, in front of as if attempting to block something or protect herself. She looked away quietly weeping. For herself maybe, or for Tara, possibly even for the dead girl in her home. It didn't matter though, simply because It did not care.

A black beak jabbed forward and the sharp tip penetrated skin, muscle, nerves and bone. It punctured the flesh cleanly from one side to the other. With a sharp yelp of pain Amy pulled her hand to her breast, cradling it with her other and continued to sob. Silently, the blood worked it's way from the deep wound to slide down the white skin of her wrist and drip patiently onto the rug, staining it deeply.

It flew back to its original perch on the girl's shoulder, she had moved out of her instinctive fetal position to watch the battle. Now she sat nervously in the corner. Legs curled beneath her hands clasped in her lap. She said nothing the entire time understanding it was not allowed. She now eyed It warily, in the dim light its blood soaked tip glimmered in the dark. It clicked its beak a few times and a black tiny tongue flickered out briefly to taste the few drops it could reach.

Now together the two of them watched as Amy seemed to be lost herself. She had stopped crying a few moments before and now her wet cheeks reflected in the gloom. The wiccan held up her hand; It was a tiny puncture but complete. She seemed to watch as the red eased over her skin, almost grudgingly.

Her brown eyes were wide as she studied the wound. "Ah..." She said softly. "I see!"

The redhead shuddered violently.

"She killed you." The whisper. Tara's whispered voice bounced around the room. "Faith killed you, first your baby, then Buffy and then she killed you."

Tara had not moved from where she was, herself, curled up on her end of the sofa. Still staring off into the dark corners of the room.

"Tara?" Amy said, not turning in her lover's direction.

"She killed you." Tara murmured again, quietly, plainly, in a neutral tone of voice with no inflection behind it. Nothing to indicate that she was being more than a voice piece for a memory. "Just..stabbed Buffy..sliced you open, baby's dead. Killed Buffy..so Buffy's dead. The she sliced your throat. So you were dead too." Tara gave a small giggle. "Sh-She slices..she dices..she even makes julienne fr-fries."

"Tara. Tara..c'mon baby..shhh.." Amy had clambered onto the sofa, putting herself between the girl, the bird and the witch. She eased Tara down so the long haired wiccan was lying with her head in her lap. If either of them noticed Amy's still bleeding hand, matting Tara's hair to her skull, they didn't say.

"She killed you." Tara started over. "She just-"

"Shush now love. Shhh..it's alright. Everything is alright." Amy ran the fingers of her unhurt hand through Tara's hair. The other hanging off behind the sofa, slowly dripping into the carpet.

"No." She said quietly. Amy jerked her head around in surprise. 'I almost forgot she was there.' She thought.

"No." The redhead repeated. "Let her speak. I..I need to hear this."

Amy's lips began to curl up yet again and a sharp word arose in her throat. Then the dull ache of her wounded hand seemed to twist about in her head and both reactions died stillborn.

Tara sighed, she lifted her head out of Amy's lap despite the others small cry of dismay. Turning her head slowly she locked eyes with the redhead.

"She killed you." Tara began yet again. "And..there was so much blood. I heard, I heard that the entire roof was covered in it. Even after you were dead, supposedly Faith just kept cutting and cutting. She..it's like she was trying to kill you, anywhere you might go."

"Say it again." The command was spat out through tightly clenched teeth.

Tara obeyed. "Faith... just..she killed you as ..and your baby she.." Tara's voice began to crack.

"Say it again!"

"She killed you!" Tara blurted. "With..her knife. Stabbed and cut..the baby was ..and Buffy."

"Again!"

"She butchered you!" Louder.

"Again!"

"She slaughtered your daughter!" Screaming.

"AGAIN!" The redhead screamed back, leaping to her feet, leaping at Tara and stopping mere inches from the wiccan's nose. A tiny rivulet of saliva worked it's way between the girls teeth, over her lower lip and hung there for an eternity.

"She..." Tara gasped. "She hurt Buffy."

In utter contrast to the volume used a second before the question uttered from dead lips was exquisitely quiet. "What?"

"Buffy wasn't dead. Before you I mean." Tara whimpered. "Faith hurt her..for hours."

The redhead took a numb step backwards. "But..but I felt her ..she died.. I know it."

"No." Tara whispered helplessly shaking her head. "Goddess no, I'm sorry but Buffy was... Faith hurt her before she let Buffy die."

"H..how? How do you know?" The girl demanded quietly.

"The newspaper." Tara replied. "The..story was about how she..she..was..found..covered..and...she was still alive when they found her. For a while."

She tried to take another step backwards but her legs gave way and she collapsed between the table and the sofa. "What did she do to her?" She growled. "What did Faith do to Buffy!?"

Tara's jaw worked silently for a few seconds. "I.." She started over. "I don't know."

Air rasped in and out of dead lungs, a mind that was far too alive not being aware that the exercise in breathing was unnecessary. The sounds of breathing from a dead person grew louder and louder in the small, dark room, until, a high pitched keening wail that built into a full throated scream then culminated in violence.

"FaaaaiiiiiiiiTTTTTTHHHHHH!" The redhead screamed standing up and putting her fist through the glass tabletop. Her blow carried through the flimsy matter and smashed into the carpeted floor but this too proved no barrier. The rug was pulverized and driven down into the cement foundation of the house and that too yielded allowing the fist to be embedded within with a sickening crunch.

Again the redhead raised her arm let fly, again the cement, solid rock, did give before her, and again, and again, each time with the sound of flesh and bone being ground to meat. The entire exercise in futility was done in silence; silence of two witches staring in abject horror, silence as an ancient force did ruffle its feathers slightly deciding that, at last, she was ready; silence as tears, fresh ones, slid down her cheeks and agony curled in her guts.

It didn't matter though. Rage could only last so long, quick and fast is was, burning itself out but the hate, and the pain those would be a source of power for a long time; a harsh mistress, a ceaseless task master that would drive the girl on, never giving her peace or respite. She would have to earn those and only through vengeance would they be paid for.

She stopped trying to destroy the floor as her rage burned out, guttered and died for the most part. Her legs gave way to the pull of the world and she slumped back against the base of the sofa resting her face in her hands, on a mutilated mess of ruptured tissue and bone, but quickly becoming less so before the two witches eyes.

"Willow...your hand." Tara began, out of the corner of her eye she noticed Amy's wounded limb still slowly dripping blood onto the carpet. "Amy! Your hand! What happened?"

The other blonde glanced at her own injury and her eyes, almost drawn against there will, tracked across the room to rest upon the black bird that had fluttered back to the girls shoulder. It seemed to be waiting for her for as she looked up on It, It, in turn, was staring at her. The human quickly broke the lock first.

"A lesson." Amy muttered. "Just a lesson."

Tara clucked her tongue a few times, reaching into her pocket. "We..we'll never g-get those stains out of the carpeting." She pulled out a handkerchief and gently wrapped it around Amy's palm. She tucked the edges of the handkerchief into the wrapping so it wouldn't come loose easily. Giving into an impulse or even a need for something comforting Tara tried to give Amy's hand a tender kiss but her lover pulled the hand away, beyond reach.

"No." She whispered. "Not now. It..it wouldn't be right."

With her hands, the one fully healed as if never harmed, spoke up. "Yes, do it now. Always do it, never let anything stop you." She turned to stare at the two lovers. "Never let anything stop you." She repeated.

Her face was wet with moisture streaming down her face. Tears, salty, but cold. Cold tears from cold flesh falling to a cold floor of broken glass, torn carpeting and crushed cement. Her eyes though were colder still. Like glimmering emeralds in the gloom of the house. Shimmering, reflecting, capturing light and twisting it outward just like the precious gems would. But a cold light.. a dead light.

"It is alright now." The redhead continued. "It..wouldn't bother me." She rubbed at her temple wearily. "It..might even help a little." She smiled slightly lowering her hand. "Help me, seeing that love still ..is?"

With a slight sigh of relief Amy held her arms open and Tara, without a sound collapsed into Amy's embrace. 'At last.' She thought to herself, cradling her head on Amy chest while working her arms around her lovers waist. 'Something warm.' She nestled down, luxuriating, briefly the warmth of Amy's sweater, the heat from her arms around her, the steady beat of her heart right next to her ear. A stab of guilt arced across her own heart, here she was safe in the arms of her love and behind her, left all alone...

'But she insisted.' Her mind countered. 'That doesn't make it any better though.'

"Willow." Tara said, voice slightly muffled be Amy's sweater and embrace. "It..it hurts to see you."

"It hurts to be seen." The redhead replied distantly. She sighed. "Go to bed. Get some rest I'll be gone soon. Where..I don't know. To do what...that I do know."

"And that would be what?" Amy said gently rubbing Tara's back and neck.

"Find Faith." The girl shrugged.

"And after that?" The Wiccan demanded.

"I..I don't know." The redhead seemed to wilt. "Maybe..."

"We'll help." Tara's muffled voice spoke up. "We have too. I..I have to." She pulled away a bit and looked up at Amy's face. "I do. You know that don't you?"

"Yes." Amy nodded. "I know and we will help."

"How can you help?" The redhead snorted getting to her feet. "I mean really. What can you do?"

"We can...uh.." Tara briefly wore a look of panic. "We can give you something to wear. Cause..it wouldn't be a good idea to walk around like that."

The redhead looked at the tattered and torn dress that was barely preserving any modesty she might have once had. "If you say so." She shrugged again. "But I can find something myself. This isn't a game Tara. This isn't the Scooby Gang anymore. That's dead..we're dead.. I'M dead! Don't you get it? Don't you understand?"

"Yes." Tara said turning around in Amy's arms. "I think I do. Amy does as well..now. That's..that's why we're going to help. And the others too we should.."

"No!" The girls shout bounced around the room. "We don't tell them. They've..gotten over it Not gonna drag them back into..whatever. We just don't tell them. Please.. I shouldn't have even.. come here and it's all just.. just don't. Please."

"If..if that's what you want." Amy said.

"We can help." Tara insisted in the background. "We ..we can help you find Faith. Y-you think we didn't want too? That we just let it go? We..we tried to find her, cause, even though the cops said there were n-no suspects we knew. All of us..w-we knew and we tried."

"So how can you help?" The redhead asked again.

"Well..we tried..in the past to..scry Faith. Find out where she was but..it never really worked." Amy shrugged. "The best we could get was LA. She was somewhere in LA. and it's not exactly like we were in touch with your friends that much."

Tara studied the new pattern of red in their now destroyed floor. 'There goes the security deposit' her mind informed her helplessly. "That..that would be my fault. What with everything..I tried to do..so.."

"I can't be here." Willow said slowly, getting to her feet. "I..can't it..it's not allowed. I'm..not sure but..it's against the rules. Go to bed. Just..go to bed..sleep. Try and forget. I'm sorry for all of this."

"We're coming then." Tara said sitting up straight. "We'll..we'll come with you to Los Angels. We'll help you f-find Faith. Do you think this is just about you? She hurt all of us, Xander, Anya everybody! So..so we're coming along too and..and you can't stop us."

With those words the black bird on the redheads shoulder flapped it's wings and landed on the space of the sofa seperating the one woman from the two wiccans. It stretched it's wings out to their full length and stayed that way. The meaning was clear; that of a barrier.

"Yes." The girl replied looking at the bird. "I do think it's just about me. I know it is. Faith killed us. She killed our child, she killed my wife and she killed me. That's why I was brought back; for vengeance, but to be taken alone. I have to go now."

She stepped around the ruins of the small table that had been the center of the room. "Sorry about that." She said indicating the mess. She stepped toward the front door.

"Willow, wait!" Amy cried out. The redhead turned around slowly, reluctantly.

Dashing out of the room Amy came back a few seconds later, in her arms she carried clothing. These she tossed on the ground. "Take them." She said. "We will help you, and if all we can do is prevent you from being a naked women on a vengeance trip than that'll have to do."

The redhead knelt down and, it seemed reverently, ran her fingers over the black jeans that lay on the floor. Also in the tangle of clothing was a simple dark red button down shirt and black socks. There even was a bra..also black.

"And..and..you can have my boots!" Tara suddenly piped up. She too rushed out of the room and came back a moment later with the items in question.

The redhead sighed. "Tara, they probably won't fit and I.."

"Y-yes they will." Tara nodded. "I..uh..I know so."

The boots joined the pile on the floor. They were a deep, grey color, with a just the tiniest bit of a heel and the material seemed to be soft leather that, when worn would be a snug fit that stretched up the leg and end just below the knee.

"I..I..that is..." The redhead stuttered. She then gave a sigh. "Where can I change?"

"Uh..the ..bathroom is through that door over there." Tara said pointing in the direction.

Gathering the clothes up in her arms the girl crossed the room and shut the door firmly.

The two wiccans sat, reluctantly on the couch. As they had moved about the room It had followed them with it's eyes, wings still outstretched, still playing the role of the barrier between them and Its vessel. The empty minutes passed, the two of them, holding hands, Tara mindful of her lovers injury being gentle. The sat on the sofa as The Crow stood on the table, it's wings marking a border they were not to pass. Where the redhead was, being on the other side of that line.

And so they sat in the dark, waiting for the what had once been to return.

With a flurry of feathers and the beat of powerful wings It took to the air and, flying across the dark room, and vanished out the still open window into the night.

"Uh.." Amy said in a puzzled tone.

"Goddess!" Tara exclaimed and leaping to her feet hurried over to the bathroom door. She flung it open and stared. Amy peered into the room over her shoulder. The white neon light from within stabbed across the dark living room floor creating very black, deep, shadows of the two of them on the floor, on the carpeting, on the blood.

Within the wind, flowing in from the open window pushed gently on the curtains. The rags that the girl had been wearing were sitting neatly folded, or as neatly folded as possible, on the closed lid of the toilet. There was no message, there was no note, no words in lipstick on the mirror. Just an open window and some folded rags.

"She's gone." Tara said sadly.

"Yes." Amy replied. She gently placed her good hand on Tara's shoulder.

"What do we do now?" Tara asked.

"We go to bed." Amy answered. "We go to bed and try and get warm."


	4. This isn't Hell, But You Can See it

It flew overhead, with the moon at its back and the earth underneath; and if, as it did fly, It noticed the evil, the demons and the other night children that were free and about it, it didn't care. If It saw the vampire feeding on a young girl, who's last wish was that she had listened to her mother and not snuck out of her room, then It did nothing. If it noticed the bestial shouts coming from an alley it flew overhead, and how the end of that alley was just a little bit darker than the rest of the night and how the unmistakeable sounds of tearing flesh, and chewing, and swallowing, came from that maw It did nothing either.

It did not hold that duty. It did not save the living, It avenged the Dead. Those were the rules, laid down by Itself far before the dawn of time. Its reasons and justifications of Its own. Maybe It was that way so there would be equal opportunity for both Chaos and Order and the balance would be maintained. Maybe It made these rules at the behest of a greater power, at the behest of the Watchmaker, or maybe it was a cold, ancient power that honestly did not care and merely went about the motions of its duty.

Or maybe it was wiser than that and knew it could not save everything and settled for doing what it could. How human of it then. On the other hand maybe it just preferred the taste of dead meat when it was feeling peckish. Either way, if It noticed, it did nothing. As it had always done and as it always would do.

All it noticed was her, Its charge, messenger, avatar, agent and slave. Watched as she hugged herself through her new clothes. Watched as she reached into a jacket pocket and discovered the small wad of cash secreted there by the witches. Watch as she turned around to return to their house...stopped..shrugged her shoulders and continued on to the bus station.

It watched her pay for a ticket. It watched her get on the bus and it saw her open a window through which it quickly darted and perched on the luggage rack within in a dark corner. And if she herself had noticed any of the death, evil, rage, pain and hate that had surrounded her as she had walked, she didn't do anything either.

But It doubted that she had.

She sat on the bus and waited for it to pull away from the curb. She hadn't noticed any of the other passengers boarding the bus, she couldn't get out of her own mind. She didn't want too. When the young man in the snappy business suit sat across from her and eyed her with an appreciative glance she didn't notice. When an old woman, carrying many suitcases and hobbling with a cane nearly tripped and fell in the aisle only to be saved at the last minute by the young man, she didn't see or hear. Her face was turned away, looking out the window waiting for the bus to start and she could begin doing what she really wanted.

Vengeance.

Vengeance is a tricky master. It supersedes right and wrong, overwhelms the question of morals, it is unto itself a circle. Its own beginning and its own ending. Closed, isolated alone. She was all of these things and locked within as well. The pain of memories, all with a hundred sharp teeth, fed on her insides and when the horrors of the endings grew bearable they would switch and loving memories, good memories would come to the fore and for all their happiness they had more vicious blades than the pain for they told her what she had lost. What had been undone, what had been stolen, destroyed, twisted...consumed.

And now, on this bus, this moving can on wheels with people, people, PEOPLE stuffed inside like fish in sardine can. All of them breathing, pushing, grunting, standing making things hot and terrible and there was no way for her rage to get out!

'The easiest way.' She decided 'To go insane is too look on the face of every person you walk by and realize they all have the same wants, hopes, dreams, fears, pain, joys and struggles that you do.' With that in mind she opened her eyes and gazed out on black Sunnydale. 'Easier to look at something fallen, than it is too look at the living.'

The bus moved away from the curb with a jerk.

It spread its wings for a moment to maintain balance. The slick steel of the rack slid between Its talons easily making remaining upright a bit of a challenge. It didn't like that and so reality accommodated It and in moments It could remain upright easily simply because It wished it so.

Cocking Its head to the side it looked down on the people. It tasted the air. Much darkness was about, and pain. Pain from the living was different from that of pain from the dead. It had less purchase on the livings' minds and hearts. That pain could be challenged, could be faced and defeated. If they were so inclined. It tasted the air again and drank in what was always there within the living.

Hope. It burned inside them no matter the circumstances, eternal. It could not understand how this was possible but it had accepted it long ago. That was one of the reasons that, while It grew bored with these mortals and their plodding little flicker lives, It would never fail in its duties to their dead.

That was its role after all. Not to care, but to do.

As the bus moved her eyes couldn't help but see what had become of her home. She didn't really want to, everything within not occupied with trying not to scream aloud, told her that looking would be a bad idea. The outside, the depths of Sunnydale passed before her and she could not look away. Like a traffic accident with twisted metal and steaming engines exposed to the world. Like a traffic accident from underneath which a large pool of liquid was spreading, darkening the road and you couldn't be sure that all of it just came from the destroyed cars.

The bus turned a corner and her eyes were drawn to the Bronze. It was still there, in fact if not in spirit. She could make out shadows moving around the entrance and even though they were only visible for a moment before the bus moved past, she knew they were not human.

The bus moved on.

As it turned a corner the gutted remains of the high school came into view. Though weathered by time and ruin, she still could see the path. The path that lead to a specific bench, where a specific event had occurred. An event that marked a beginning.

_**"But aren't you hanging out with Cordelia?" A redhead has asked once upon a time. **_

_**"I can't do both?" The blonde sitting beside her had asked. **_

_**"Not legally." **_

Her chest hitched and she had to swallow down a sob. The back of her eyes began to tingle, a steady, annoying itching burning feeling. She fought against the impulse, the need to let go; thankfully fate accommodated her and the remains of Sunnydale High swung out of site as the bus turned another corner.

To face the new SunnyDale High school. The walls might have been built within the last three years but already they seemed to sag with age. Bright colored pastel walls were defaced with layers and layers of spray paint. The bushes that lined the path up to it's front door were twisted and bare. The door itself was locked with heavy chains and padlocks even she could make out from this far distance. The bus moved on and Sunnydale's new school was lost in the dark.

Her eyes flickered over the road, the houses streaming past, the yards she was beginning to recognize. Again her breath, unneeded but there anyway, caught in her throat. A weak croak worked it's way past her parted lips.

"No." She mouthed more than spoke.

She found her voice.

"Not this way. Please. Turn, change, move..please don't go this way." She said in a hushed whisper but the driver didn't hear and wouldn't have cared anyway.

A familiar house zipped past, then another and another and she knew what was coming.

'Close your eyes!' Her mind screamed. 'Close your eyes now!' Yet even with her heart hammering away, even knowing about the repeated squeaks of 'no no no' over and over again, she couldn't command her eyelids to shut, or her face to turn away from the window.

It was worse then she could have imagined.

What had been the Summers household, what had been their own home..wasn't anymore.

Warm light blazed from nearly every window casting a cheery, glow on the even, cut grass of the front lawn. The bushes were carefully trimmed and the front porch had been given a fresh coat of paint. From behind the closed curtains she could make out the silhouettes of two people holding hands. They seemed to be flowing in front of the large picture window, spinning, dancing to music she could not hear.

From the top floor of the house a light switched on, maybe her ears were deceiving her, she shouldn't have been able to hear but...

A small piercing voice seemed to knife through the walls of the house, across the space and into the constrictive, hot, bus just for her ears alone.

"Maaammmaaaa! Maaaaaammmaaa! I'm thirsty! Mama? Can I get a cup of..." and the voice grew dim as the bus moved past what had once been hers but wasn't anymore.

She covered her mouth with her hands, trying to muffle the sobs that were wracking her body. Her home had been taken, not just left, empty and silent. That would have been bad enough but it had been taken, stolen! And in her place a family had found a home where, inside, they were comfortable, happy, and safe. Things which should have been hers; a great swell of hate erupted inside her guts and she half started to rise from her seat, to smash through the window and take back her home. She started to rise up with her heart set on murder.

A quiet cry from It, for her ears alone, dissuaded her from that mistake. She hunched over in her seat, hands still firmly pressed again her mouth. Behind her eyes the itching had grown to a screaming and she could feel the tears beginning to well up. Her hands pressed her lips against her teeth she could feel the flesh tearing and bleeding from within. She knew if she began to cry, she would begin to scream, and if she began to scream she would never stop.

As if seized by a great hand she felt her head turning of it's own volition to again stare out the window. Despite the tears along the edge of her vision making things blurry she could make out what was before her clearly enough.

_**"May I say, you look truly radiant, Miss Willow. Having a baby agrees with you." **_

_**"Ah, and the proud papa, eh?" **_

_**"Ah, not only am I an old Italian. I'm an old Gypsy, eh?" **_

"Mario." The girl whispered, her hands were pressed against the glass as the bus drove by the fire gutted remains of the Italian restaurant. Bare spikes of blackened wood stabbed upward into the night sky like the ribs of an ancient beast slaughtered and left to rot. The sign that had once glowed in the dark inviting all to enter and feast hung disjointed and broken. The 'I' 'O' and 'S' were burned away leaving only the 'MAR' but it was enough to recognize.

"Not Mario." The girl whispered, her breath fogging the window. She slid down the glass into her seat, head bent over her knees, hands pressed to her face as the final link to what she had known and loved was destroyed.

And as a new pain flared into life within it lent its power to all the old agonies and they reached a point. And inside her they blazed hotter and higher than before and they fed and burned and devoured. Something was destroyed within, something was eaten and something broke free. Surging, rolling up from the darkness it screamed across her soul with the fury of a tidal wave and in its wake nothing was the same.

The young man across the aisle had been watching the strange girl seated on the other side carefully. Yes she was attractive, very nice on they eyes actually. Short, slim, a dark burnt hue of red hair that cascaded down just below her shoulders. Her clothes were a bit somber but the figure to die for. Despite all this he was getting somewhat nervous. He'd seen her trying to muffle her cries and when she saw what was left of that restaurant she had fallen to pieces. She now lay on the two seats curled into a fetal position. He could see her shoulders shaking and he figured she was crying. His heart panged in sympathy.

'Well.' He thought. 'Nothing ventured nothing gained. Sides, maybe she'll want a cup of coffee or something.'

"Miss?" He spoke quietly. "Miss are you okay?"

The redhead slowly lifted her face from her hands and looked in the direction the voice had come from. She locked eyes with the man across from her and watched his eyes widen in horror. The man scrambled back to the wall of the bus. He had been wrong, she hadn't been crying.

She was laughing.

She was laughing so hard that tears ran down her face and she could barely keep her eyes open. Her cheeks were stretched to the point of splitting open, her lips were pulled back revealing sharp, white teeth.

"Me?" The redhead asked still laughing. "I'm fine! Can't you tell?"

Before his eyes her tears began to run turn slightly murky and were soon bright red. 'Blood. His mind screamed at him. 'She's crying blood!'

"I am the picture of health." The girl warbled teeth shining in the gloomy confines of the bus. "Absolutely peachy! Did I mention that I'm peachy. Peachy I tell you."

She sat up and leaned toward him, her whisper carried across the space between them and struck with the force of a hammer. "Peachy."

The blood streamed down her face, from both eyes, in a long straight line arcing over curved cheeks and around the lines marking the borders of her strained smile. Then, to his mounting terror another line of blood worked it's way from her upper eyelids and left a similar trail, directly opposite the lower one, running up her forehead.

"I'm smiling aren't I?" She giggled. "I'm laughing. Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and the world laughs at you! Can't have that can we?"

She broke off into another fit of laughter as bright blood gushed from her lips coating them solid. A drop of blood in the corners of either side of her mouth, defying all reality, rolled sideways across her face, extending, twisting and corrupting the natural smile of her laughing mouth.

He gaped as she continued to laugh, either oblivious or not caring to what was happening to her. The blood leaking from her face seemed to drain the blood from within and her flesh grew pale and white like carved marble before his eyes.

"La..la..lady." He stuttered in a horrified whisper. "Y..your face!"

"She loved my face you know." The girl snapped her head around to lock him in place with her glare. "We'd spend hours in bed together and she'd just run her hands over my face so gently. Over and over, most of the time with the back of her hand. Or she'd caress the line of my nose with her finger. If you ever meet her you should ask her to do that for you, it feels great."

She snapped her fingers. "Wait. Sorry, you can't meet her. Why you ask? Because she's dead. She's dead and gone and I somehow got left behind. I can't quite figure out how that happened. We became dead at the same time you see but... who knows. Maybe Heaven's behind on the paperwork?" She giggled into her hand and the blood did not smear or run.

Instead it began to grown darker. In a few short seconds it was midnight black and she looked like a hideous caricature of a clown. A mask was on her face now. Comedy, lighter of the twins of Drama. She wore Comedy on her features but Tragedy feasted on her heart.

"Yes." The redhead said nodding. "She's dead. But that's okay. I got left behind and that's okay too. See..I got left behind for a reason. This shouldn't have happened. To me, to her..to us. It was wrong. Wrong, wrong wrongity wrong wrong wrong. But that's okay just like the other parts. Do you know why?"

She peered at him intently as if waiting for an answer.

He worked the muscles of his suddenly parched mouth trying to find the saliva to speak. "W..why?" He gasped.

She smiled again. It was a suddenly gentle, sweet, lost smile, even under the mask she wore he felt it's impact shatter against his heart and he felt tears of his own welling up.

"Because." She began in a soft lilt. "Because I'm going to put things right." She looked away from him for a moment and was silent.

With a sigh she looked at him again. "Thank you for asking, really. Are you going to LA?"

The question caught him off guard and it took a moment for his brain to catch up. His best effort resulted in a mute nod.

She clucked her tongue a few times and shook her head. "I..I'd advise against going just now." She said softly looking him in the eyes. "It won't be a very nice place for the next few days. Sure you wanna go?" She titled her head to the side and her lips slid apart in a wider smile revealing the tips of her teeth.

He dumbly nodded, scrambled to his feet, grabbed his belongings and hit the 'Next stop' button. As he clambered off the bus she called softly after him. "Run home."

The bus pulled away from the curb and she slid past the people still on board like a ghost, unnoticed. She worked her way to the back seat and peered out the large window in the rear. She watched him run as fast as he could, tie flailing behind him, long legs eating up the distance between the bus stop and wherever he lived.

"Maybe that wasn't such a good idea." She said to herself. A scratching sound attracted her attention and she turned her painted face up the luggage rack. It stared down at her with black eyes and she met its stare, moment for moment, inch for inch, pound for pound.

It stared at a girl.

The Crow locked eyes with The Crow.

And carrying them both, like a can on wheels with a full load of flesh, a bus drove to LA.


	5. A Preference for Something Cryptic

Crows.

For a long time I watched the crows flying,  
Black as youth falling into an abyss.  
Far away the west flared at moments,  
Under grey clouds hunted by the wind.  
Without sound or aim the crows flew.

Black, all equal, they told the tragic story.  
How terrifying it is to resemble the others.  
Silence: mortals and eternity struggle.  
The world around me falls into their net.  
How terrifying it is to resemble the others!

A cry, bursting with passion, tore the night.  
The voice of a crow. The flock rushed after him.  
And he cried, conscious of his powers,  
And led his black brothers to their goal.  
Soundlessly the crows flew through the night.

I shivered. I felt at that moment  
I resembled an unknown, chaste woman  
Who, stepping on the path that leads to her downfall,  
Shudders, while shame flushes her face.  
That night my Will was born in me.

-Milutin Bojic

Ironically enough the bus pulled into the LA bus station early in the morning. It was the beginning of a lovely day. A cool breeze had been blowing across the city all night and, while making the morning somewhat chilly, most of the ever present smog was cast away. The sun beamed down, with only a few sparse clouds marring its omnipotence and soon the cold would be gone.  
So not only was the weather just fine, the temperature just fine, the city, just fine and the timing just fine, but it was also a Saturday. Which meant that just fine families could spend this just fine day together and get along...just fine.

And climbing down the steps of a bus, the last person to disembark it was a girl, a redhead, who was not 'just fine'. It hopped out an open window, took flight briefly and landed on the edge of the bus depot roof.

For the first time in centuries the dead walked the streets of LA.

It is a mistake to classify vampires and other similar ilk as 'dead'. They are the undead. They go through the pantomime of life. Satisfying needs, answering the calls of desire, loving, hating, feeding and resting in a twisted mockery of the human existence. But it's still living.  
She had none of this. She did not rest, nor feed. The dead have no desires but she did have one, this made her no less dead though. The living exist off of desires, once one is satisfied another takes its place and a another waits for that one to fall before springing up itself. She had only the one and when satisfied she would have no other and no longer be.

She stepped out from under the canopy of the bus terminal into the full, blazing sunlight of an LA morning. The crowds of people parted before her, those who noticed her face visibly blanched and backed away hurriedly. Those that didn't though also moved out of her way; an instinct in their minds telling them that something terrible was behind them and that they had best move perhaps.  
Either way she made her way through the crowds easily and turned onto the sidewalk.

She had spent the ride from her grave to this dead city trying not to feel, rather she had tried to think. A difficult task but by the time the bus arrived she had a basic course of action. Based on what little she had seen and been told by the witches Faith had disappeared into the depths of LA.

'If anyone knows where a slayer is, it would be her prey.' She had decided. 'And all I have to do is find a something that might tell me where all its little something pals go to have a drink. There has to be a place like 'Willy's' in LA.'

However, the bus having arrived in the City of Angels during the day meant she had several long, empty hours to do away with before she could begin. She walked the streets of the city, she did not bow her head, or look away from anyone who stared at her but met their questioning eyes with her own and any who did look upon her, either out of curiosity or with lecherous thoughts found themselves captured and their day, so warm and friendly seconds before, was now tinged with pain. Their feelings would always change at that. Some would remember loved ones lost, others would feel old wounds of their own fight to the surface but none, not one dared look upon this girl with pity.

Either way, she did not care. Eye contact is a form of communication. A sharing of some intangible human quality, or, in the opposite spectrum, a challenge. Any who she looked upon, as she walked the streets of LA, felt neither touched or challenged. Most had the unwelcome and unpleasant sensation of being examined, like a specimen on a petrie dish and then passed over.

Eventually the redhead found herself in a small park. Green grass soaked up the welcome rays of the sun while stirring slightly in the breeze. Trees there, finally, not of the palm variety, spread their canopies of they sky creating large areas of cool comfort to any seeking to escape the intense rays. A green, growing, living cul de sac in stark contrast to the overwhelming grey of concrete and hard steel plated fists of the surrounding city. It even had a little pond.

With fish.

She though she could hear a few frogs too.

Around the pond a small playground was built. With a swing set and a jungle gym. All in bright shades of green and blue that worked well with the surrounding green of the park. Near them were several green benches. Surprisingly free of graffiti or desecration of any kind. Here parents sat and chatted while their children did expand copious amounts of youthful energy chasing each other around and bout the playground. Possibly a futile attempt, by the parents, to exhaust their children before taking them home so the little ragmuffins wouldn't go on a wrecking spree in their own homes.

Having nothing else to do, and nowhere else to go, she leaned against a tree and watched.  
She let her legs give way slightly and slid down the bark, peeling away pieces and chunks as she did so till she was seated on the ground, legs bent slightly, arms crossed over her chest.

She watched the children.  
She watched their parents.  
She watched people walk on the gravel paths that wound through the trees.

And she let all this living touch her. She opened herself to everything that she could have been a part of but wasn't, all because of the actions of another; a thief in the night, a killer in the dark. The agony still was wrapped around her silent heart. It pumped through her empty veins acting now, instead of tormentor, but that of ally. Criss crossing through flesh , over and in organs, ducts, and capillaries. Taking on the role of blood as she had none living. She and her pain had come to an agreements of sorts. They would work together.

"You have puppies?" A child's voice stirred her from her observations.

"Yes." Said the tall man holding the hand of a small child. "And if you're a very good girl and hurry along you can have one."

"Mama says I can't have a puppy." The girl griped.

The man chuckled. "Well, we won't tell her will we?"

"Nope." The child grinned, flush with the idea of being victorious over tyrannical, parental oppression.

"You are a good girl." The man complimented her while the child beamed.

They quickly began to move out of earshot. Without a word the redhead got to her feet. With quick strides she caught up the man. As she closed with him she became aware of...a stench of sorts. A corrupting miasma in the very air about him.

'Defiler.' Her mind screamed. She quickened her pace.

"Darling." The man spun around at the voice over his shoulder. A short, redhaired girl stood behind him, dressed in grey and red. Her face was adorned...

"Jesus!" He exclaimed taking a step back. "Wh..what are-"

"You're missing our birthday party." The redhead purred stepping closer. "Our poor baby will be so disappointed if you miss it."

"Look..lady.." The man swallowed nervously as she caressed his face with one, ice cold, hand.

"But..but he was going to give me a puppy." The small child wined.

The redhead sank to her knees and 'beeped' the girl gently on the nose with the tip of one finger causing the child to giggle.

"I'm sorry honey, but we have no puppies to give. We could give you one but it's for our son. It's his birthday you see. You wouldn't want to take away his birthday present would you?" The redhead asked gently, stroking the child's brown hair.

"I guess not." The child pouted. "Are you a clown?"

"Right now?" The redhead replied. "I suppose, for the moment."

"I like clowns." The child giggled again. Behind them the man fumed, fists clenched, grinding his teeth together. The redhead glanced over her shoulder.

"Temper, temper..darling." She smiled with a wink. She turned back to the child. "Where's your mother dear?"

"Over there." The child said pointing. "Do you think she'll be a clown for my birthday?"

"Who knows?" The redhead shrugged. "Anything's possible."

"Well..." The child mumbled. "Will you be a clown on my birthday? I think I'd like that."

The redhead felt her eyes widen just a bit. Her ally was rebelling inside. She could feel cold water making it's way behind her eyes, ready to spill out at any second and that was something she was no longer willing to abide.

"I'd like that too baby." The redhead said in a hushed whisper. "I'd like that very much." Her arms screamed to take this child into her arms. To hug her and hold her close. To tell her fairy tales and stories of princesses and dragons and hero's that always saved the day. No matter what reality said in contrast. But she didn't.

It watched from it's perch in the trees. This wasn't quite what It had had in mind, in fact this was a flagrant violation of the rules but it didn't matter. They always did this one way or another. Maybe something like a baptism. A message would have to be sent. As always.

"Go to your mother." The redhead murmured quietly. "She'll let you have a puppy."

"Really?" The child squealed joyfully.

"Someday." The redhead nodded.

"Okay..byyyeeeeeee!" The child called, running in the direction she had come. She stopped, turned and waved crying, "Tell your son happy birthday!" Then scampered away back to the lands of warm sunshine.

"Now 'darling'," The redhead drawled getting to her feet. "We have a matter to discuss."

"You bitch!" The predator snarled. "I don't give a fuck what you think you're doing I'm going to gut you."

She tried to stifle the laugh, a hard, sharp one but she didn't. "Sorry." She spoke around her snickers. One hand pulled up the bottom of her red shirt revealing before the predator's startled eyes a tortured field of puckered, scarred flesh. "Somebody beat you too it."

"Jesus." He said again. The knife he had pulled out his pocket hanging loosely in one hand.

"Has nothing to do with it." The girl finished grabbing his wrist in a vice like grip. "This is a far cry from 'love thy neighbor.'" And with a heave she effortlessly tossed the startled man into a thick wall of bushes.

"Anyway." The girl said brushing her hands off. "I'm Jewish." And she dove into the leaves after him.

Tree's swayed in the fresh air, sunlight filtered between the canopy of leaves making interesting patterns of light and shadow on the grass below. Birds sang sweet songs and the people listening didn't care if the chirping were actually meant to warn off intruders or attract a mate. They were bird songs that pleased the ear of humans and went well with this beautiful, sunny day. Small children, ignoring natures music so caught up were they in their own laughter and fun, darted from tree to tree having a swell old time.

"Ozzy Ozzy, oxen are free!" One child called loudly, mangling badly the traditional saying usually associated with 'Hide and Seek'.

And a few seconds later a redhead, in grey and red, black lips in a permanent smile with tears of also an eternal nature stepped out of the bushes, brushing a few errant leaves off her clothing. She walked easily back to her tree and took her seat, and watched the children scamper for the safety of 'home base'.

Nobody else came out of those bushes.

Overhead, in the branches of Its tree, It found a bug and ate it.

Time passed. The crowd of children that had played together, and sworn eternal vows of friendship that would be forgotten in the morning, had been taken home by their parents. The lunch crowd came and went. A horde of unlucky ones, or ambitious ones, willing to work on a weekend yet still enjoying what moments of freedom they could. The men dressed in business suits, the women in blouses and skirts. Though most men had their jackets flung over one shoulder and their ties loosened.

She watched them as they sat and talked, plotting finances or discussing workplace gossip. Then they rolled up their brown bags or fast food garbage and carefully placed them in the appropriate receptacles. And then they left.

She still sat and the park was, for the moment, mostly empty. Here a man was walking his dog, there a young woman on roller skates had stopped to feed the ducks.

Still, she didn't act too surprised when someone sat down next to her. Turning her head a fraction of an inch she saw that it was the young man she had 'met' earlier. Well, almost. He was dressed the same, casual tan slacks, with a darker brown turtleneck. Of course the rest of him had looked better.

His head was was now a weather beaten, discolored skull with a few loose strands of hair hanging limply. The eye sockets were almost empty, with a few clinging shreds of flesh still sticking to the inside. Broken, yellow teeth were there in a grin. On it's head it wore a dirty, dingy, cowboy hat.

"You took his body." She said.

"You made it available." It said with a shrug. Bone clicked against bone under the loosely fitting turtleneck.

"Yes." She nodded.

"Broke the rules." It said. It's voice was dry and vapid. Like the final gasp of a person as their life support is shut off.

"So?" Now it was her turn to shrug. She looked away from the messenger, watching instead, far away, the girl feeding the ducks.

"Broke the rules." It said again. "Bad move."

"What rules?" She asked not caring.

With a terrible tearing sound and accompanied by a devils choir of screams the pain blasted across her mind. She hunched over gagging, both hands pressed against her stomach. Her fingers came away wet. With a shriek she pulled her shirt up to see the layers of scar tissue peeling away like an onion. A crimson stream belched forth from the wound, staining her pants and the grass around her in a crimson pool. She awkwardly fumbled to her hands and knees, fighting off the nauseous waves of agony as her flesh spilled open.

The other girl, by the pond, fed the ducks some more bread. The ducks were very grateful for the free lunch.

The redhead pulled herself up, staining the side of tree with her life, trying to get to her feet. To..just go..get gone. Find somewhere and something.

"Buffy.." She croaked. A familiar coppery taste was rising in the back of her throat. "Help me..."

Then with a smile and a wink, the Universe snapped back. She was sitting again at the base of the tree, the ground clean and fresh. A wave of wind made the blades of grass flutter. The messenger stood over her, its skull still smiling, empty sockets still seeing.

"Broke the rules." It groaned. "You're here to avenge the Dead. Not save the living."

She grit her teeth at the memories of the 'warning' and the echoing pain in her gut. Glaring at the messenger through her tears she choked out her response.

"Fuck you."

And she lurched to her feet, her fist whipped around and caved in its grin like a melon. Her blow carried her hand through the front and back of its skull. What remained slid down her wrist only getting caught on the material of her jacket. It jerked and jittered about, its dry bones making a quiet, terrible noise as they trembled.

With a disgusted snort she shook her hand free of the messenger's remains. It collapsed on the ground with a clatter and small rising cloud of dust.

She moaned and slumped again to the ground, resting her face in her hands. As she sobbed the skull slowly reformed. Fragments of bone skittering across the earth to work their way up the shattered face, find the right spot, and become sealed in place.

"Broke the rules." The voice called. She jerked away from the grinning skull that now swiveled in place from the ground to leer up at her. "Not gonna get your puppy you keep that up."

With a shriek she sat bolt upright. There was no torn shriveled skeleton on the ground, nothing to indicate that it had ever been there. An old couple, sitting on a nearby bench looked about frantically before scowling at the 'goth girl' sitting beneath the tree. Shaking their heads and muttering they went back to reading the paper together before being bothered by that 'very disturbed young woman.'

"God." She sobbed into her hands. "God..God..God..God..." She moaned over and over again.  
She didn't stop till she felt a light touch on her knee. It stared at her. The black feathers gleamed in the fading light but Its eyes did not. They absorbed the fading rays of the sun like a void. Like two small encapsulated shards of Entropy.

"Yes." She whimpered. "I understand."

Is spread Its wings and cawed loudly over her shoulder.

She swiveled about and looked. Behind her the sun was setting. The orange glow reached from end to end of the horizon.

It was time to go.

She stalked across the park, orange light filtering through the leaves of the canopy, making, the now black grass appear as on fire. As she stepped past a specific place in the bushes she could hear birds inside, fighting over a juicy piece of dead meat.

The sun had set hours ago. How long she wasn't sure as she didn't wear a watch. She had been stalking the back alleys and dark corners of LA. Looking for a certain type of predator. Actually she had been trying to get the predator's to look for her. An hour or so back she had even gone so far as to tear an aluminum can in half and use the sharp metal to make small incisions in her wrists. She had hoped the smell of blood would attract a certain type of 'something.'

Other than causing a few seconds of mild discomfort it hadn't been a very productive experiment. Her skin had sealed itself seconds later giving the wound little time to bleed. She had wiped her wrist clean with a muffled curse and decided not to repeat the exercise. She wasn't too comfortable with self mutilation, even under the present circumstances.

So she had spent the time since then just..walking. She kicked aside empty cartons, crushed broken glass under her heels. She ignored the homeless and the lost. Remembering the words of the lesson. 'Not the living.' She changed in her own head. 'Can't help the living.' Though she couldn't really label anything anyone else did in this darkness as 'living'.

'So.' She thought to herself. 'I must fit right in.'

And she must have somehow done so. She was universally ignored by those living in the dark. Human's living in the dark at least. She hadn't seen anything that didn't fit the bill of Inhuman but there had been a few times when she wasn't sure.

As she walked through the filth, sliding from ally to ally, by one Goth club, where she had received a few compliments, to another Rave party, where she had been proposed, she could always feel It overhead. Drifting on night winds or resting on the edges of the surrounding black buildings. It was always there. Watching her hunt. She did her best to ignore It.

Finally, in an extraordinarily rotten corner of the city, tucked not so far away from where the five dollar whores plied their trade as best they were able, she found what she was looking for.

"So. Now I'm wondering, what with me and my friends here being surrounded by crack addicts and wasted flesh that is just simply unsafe to snack upon, what brings a yummy looking thing like you into our territory."

The leering, guttural voice had come from behind her. It sounded like someone with half a mouthful of strawberry jam and broken teeth. She didn't turn around but did her best to sound weak. It wasn't that hard, habits like weakness usually come to the fore when you don't want them too.

"..I'm..I'm..lost." Her voice quavered and she squeaked when she spoke. Just the thing to get a hunter all hot and bothered. To make its stolen blood get all burning in its undead veins.

She heard the footsteps stop just behind her but she still didn't turn around. A cold, heavy hand fell on her shoulder, she could feel the chill even through the jacket and the shirt; compared to the winter around her heart it was a balmy spring breeze.

"Yes, you are." Gutteral voice snarled. "Lost little lamb chop never to be found. Except maybe as a statistic." Two other course voices laughed behind the speaker. 'Three of them.' She thought.

She wasn't surprised when her perspective changed. She seemed to be standing on the edge of a roof looking down into the ally. In the dim light she could see herself standing with three other..things..behind her. One directly behind her, the other two on either side of the leader. Ready to flank her if needed.

'Neat.' She thought.

The leader's other hand whipped around, grabbed her head and yanked it to the side exposing her throat. Playing the role to the hilt, she let out a gasp of 'fear'. She knew what they liked to hear.

"God I never get tired of this." The leader chortled. He bared his fangs and sank them into the redhead's neck.

It ruffled its feathers and watched the goings on with interest. Something new was actually happening, this didn't occur often.

She felt a sharp pain, but nothing unbearable. Twin pinpricks really, and then there was a moment of peace, sort of a warmth spread from the wounds in her throat, not far and not a good warmth either. Like the warmth of a rotten dead thing that's been decomposing in the sun too long but has actually forgotten to wither away. After that there was a particular tugging sensation, on the inside as if someone had dropped tiny hooks within her body and were now trying to gently, but irresistibly pull those insides out. All in all it wasn't that bad.

Then ...whatever that was part of her that had made her what she was now..and kept her from being what she had been, exploded. Silence is not the opposite of noise, it is merely the absence of it. This sound, this antiscream poured from her into the parasite hanging onto her neck bringing with it infinity. Vampire's say they are immortal, they say they are eternal but in truth they're just very, very long lasting. This was infinity now, the endless be all, end all cycle of absolutes infecting the vampires core; and its demonic mind snapped like a chicken bone. It's not a very nice thing to be shown just exactly where you fit in everything else.

With a gurgle it stumbled back a few steps, hands clasped to it's throat, choking, and coughing. Trying to dislodge a shard of reality with physical endeavor. Vengeance, primal absolute; vengeance warred with its demon host. Not exactly a fair fight. Screaming, or at least trying to, it continued to back away, lurching this way and that, bouncing off disposal bin it collapsed against a wall and beat its head against the bricks. Once..twice..three times. Then with a garbled cry it flung its arms outwards, forced up on the tips of it's toes. The image was a sort of caricature of a crucifixion. Undead lips pulled away from yellow, sharp teeth in a sickening grimace and, in the grey, darkened gloom the witnessess could see a solitary tear work it's way down a wrinkled, deformed, vampiric cheek.

"Beautiful." It breathed...

...then the dead flesh peeled away from a smoking skeleton, that a split second later exploded like a dust filled vacuum cleaner.

One of the other two vampires had been smoking a cigarette while it's boss had taken first dibs on the redhead. The red tip of burning ash tumbled slowly from numb lips as it stared at what was left of it's leader.

"The fuck?" The third one said.

The smoker didn't bother saying anything. It ran. Not far, but it tried. The redhead leaped to the side of the garbage bin and gave it a kick. It was a big one too. Overflowing with garbage and flies, it had not been emptied in years as no garbage men were stupid enough to come this part of the city. Its iron sides had become pitted and rusty with age, only a few scraps of paint were left to show it's original color of pea green. From the Redhead's kick it screamed across the ally, slammed into the vampire and then impacted with the wall on the opposite side crushing the undead between steel and stone. Didn't kill it of course, but it wouldn't be going anywhere for a very long time.

The final vampire turned to face the girl. It finally got a good look at her face. It being paler than it's own and the darkened smile..something about it made it uneasy. As if it could get any more bothered by one friend imploding and the other being crushed.

It snarled. Twin forces raged across it's face. One of fear and the other anger that this slight girl, this nothing, this..this...snack did not only not fear it and it's ilk but was also kicking their collective asses. "What are you?!" It demanded to know.

"Curious." She smiled at him.

"What?"

"Let's say," She began as she walked toward him slowly. "That I was looking for a certain someone. Where would I go, in this city, to get that kind of information?"

"What?" It said again backing away.

She blurred across the space separating them and, despite being a good foot shorter than it was, hoisted it off the ground, one hand wrapped around its throat. It really liked that particular move, it did it whenever it was about to feed. It liked watching it's meal scramble madly for purchase, their feet flailing about and hands clawing at its grip. Choking, gasping, eyes rolling in stark terror. Wasn't as much fun being on the receiving end.

All semblance on control was cast away. "Where do you go!" The girl shrieked, slamming the vampire against a graffiti encrusted brick wall. "Where do you go after a hard night's feasting huh?" She slammed him again. The bones in the back of it's skull cracked. "After you've had your fill of death where do you GO?!" If it noticed how tears were running down her face it didn't say.

"To cool off!" Crunch.

"To take a breather." Crunch.

"To get a cold beer!" Crunch.

"Where do you go to be with your own kind?" She said more quietly.

"Caritas." It burbled through a mouthful of broken teeth. "Caritas, Caritas...neutral territory. Caritas, no fighting..all welcome. Caritas..please..please..Caritas."

She sniffed a few times, wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. Bending down she snapped off the side of packing crate making an impromptu stake.

"No." She said still sniffing quietly. "No Caritas for you."

And she pinned him to the wall. Briefly; before he burst into ash.

She walked to the garbage bin, still embedded in the wall and pulled it away. The shattered remains of the other vampire soon added to the dirt coating the cracked pavement of the streets. Some of it blew away in the evening wind. Flakes of dust, formally demon, skittered across the now empty, dark ally.

Caritas was not that hard to find. It took a nearly an hour to walk back to that part of the darker half of LA but that was about the only problem she had. She eased through the entrance way. She worked her way through the various clientele, intent on reaching the bar. That was until she heard a specific voice.

"It's been three years!"

"I know. I know and I wish I could help, but you've come here and sang and sang and sang and I still see nothing. You could probably sing a karaoke version of 'The Three Tenors' and nothing would change."

"But she has to be somewhere!" The first voice spoke again.

'Angel.' The name flashed across her mind and instinct took over. She darted for a dark corner and tried to get lost in the crowds.

"Maybe. Maybe not." The Host shrugged. "I don't read the future Angel. All I can tell you is what I see. And every time you come here, sing a song and then ask about finding Faith all I can tell you is that I see the same thing over and over again."

Angle slammed his fist onto the bar cracking the top. "I'm adding that to your tab." The Host pointed out.

"What does the image of 'black feathers' mean?" Angle snarled ignoring the slight chastisement.

The Host reached for a glass and began polishing it, it didn't need it but it was something to do. "I don't know Angel. I've asked around y'know. I don't just stick to this aura reading stuff. True, it's a definite bonus but..." He sighed. "I'm just the messenger, not the message."

"Fine." Angle said in a clipped voice. "She kills them, butchers them and all anyone can tell me is 'That she's in LA' somewhere. From you I get 'black feathers' and from every other source of scrying and 'third eye' mumbo jumbo is 'the sound of wings'."

"And the number three." The Host added.

"It was Three. Two days ago, third anniversary of...of.." He rubbed his eyes.

"Yeah. Yeah I know. You told me. I heard too. Man, what that dark slayer did. Gave even some of my demonic clientele the creeps."He set the glass down.

"Look." He leaned on his elbows moving closer to Angel. "I'll ask around again. Maybe something's come up, I've gotten a few more contacts in the last few weeks, maybe one of them heard something."

"Sure." Angel nodded. He examined his drink carefully. It was orange with a tiny umbrella. He picked up the decoration and carefully closed his hand into a fist, crushing the fragile paper and snapping the wire thin pieces of wood. Then opening his hand he allowed the crushed umbrella, now pulped into a splintered lump, fall to the floor. He ground it underfoot.

"Feel better?" The Host asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No." Angel replied.

"If I let you kill every demon in this place and pull my bar down around my ears, think that would make you feel better?"

Angel shook his head. "Probably not."

"Go home Angel." The Host sighed. "Be with your friends. I'm sure this anniversary is still hitting them pretty hard."

"Cordy hasn't come out of her room for days." Angel said. "This time of year, she just vanishes for a while."

"If anything comes up I'll be in touch." The Host said.

"You won't be too offended if I reply 'I won't hold my breath'?" Angel asked.

"You don't breathe." The Host pointed out.

Angel gave a short nod and, without a word, spun about and worked his way to the exit.

She watched him leave from her corner in the dark. A slight weight settled on her left shoulder and she could feel It's talons sinking into the material of her jacket. She began to shoulder her way past the other 'people', steadily moving toward the bar. It never lost Its balance.

The Host had his back to the rest of the bar, he had just received a large list of rather exotic drinks and was rushing to gather the required ingredients.

"Just had to have Wallaby Eye, didn't you." He grumbled. "I don't see the point. An olive is just as good but do these demons ever listen? Nooo..it's always something fancy." He heard a familiar 'squeak' behind him.

"Aha." He said aloud without turning around. "You must be new here, or you have a problem."

"How can you tell?" The redhead asked softly.

"Easy." The Host said pushing some bottles out the way. "Everybody who knows this place knows that's the 'I Want to Sing Next Cause I Have a Problem So The Host Will Read My Aura And Help' stool."

"Long name." She answered.

"Well the abbreviation 'IWTSNCIPSTHWRMAAH' doesn't really flow of the tongue either." He paused. "And I think it's very insulting thing to say in Thornian. Not sure. First and last time I used it a Thorn demon overheard and broke down a wall."

"So you think I have a problem?" She said.

The Host was now on his hands and knees poking about a cupboard under the sink still looking for ingredients. "I know you do."

"And for your help I have to sing so you can read my aura?"

"Yep." He said. "Aha! Found you." He pulled the bottle of Wallabye Eyes from its place deep in the cupboard.

"What if I have no songs?" She asked, more to herself than anyone else.

"Don't be silly." The Host said climbing to his feet. "Of course you..." He finally looked at her. At her white face, black smile, and her black tears.

"... have songs." He finished lamely. With a quiet sound of wings It hopped off the redheads shoulder and landed on the bar. The Host involuntarily took a step backwards. He glanced from the black bird to the girl, and back the the bird. His jaw worked a few times but no sound came out.

"Ch'Hio Kai'CsKkull!" He gaped finally. "Gods. Ch'Hio Kai'CsKkull, I should have known."

The redhead cocked her head to one side and It, in sinister symmetry did the same, two sets of black eyes peered at him curiously.

"You know of us?" She asked quietly.

The Host nodded, nervously grabbing a rag and began wiping down the spotless bar. "I've heard stories. Even where I'm from we have tales of..."

"It's a Crow." She filled helpfully.

"No." The Host shook his head. "It's Ch'Hio. Many Faced Dancer. Trickster, carrion eater, dead lord, judge..." He shrugged. "Ch'Hio Kai'CsKkull." The Host tapped crossed his arms and appeared to be thinking furiously. "I suppose something is lost in the translation." He finally admitted with a shrug.

"I'm looking for someone." She replied; she no longer cared about who or what her master was.

"Your kind always are." The Host replied. "Who are you seeking? Who wronged you so terribly that Ch..it," He nodded in It's direction. "Came for you?"

"Faith."

It was just one word, a name. Five letters, nothing threatening. Yet the host's normally green skin became a unhealthy shade of pastel, the red of his eyes bleeding away to a dull, ugly rose pink. He leaned on the counter top but never took his eyes from his newest 'guest'.

"We..Angel..er.." He tried again. "You're looking for Faith? That would mean..." His eyes, became even more pink as the fresh revelation rocked him. The Host was not easily distressed, always there with a quick jibe, a small piece of advice. He was a bartender as well as the Host. It takes a lot to shock those types. This one time the situation warranted it. And Horror and not a small amount grief.

"You?" He finally managed to wheeze.

She nodded slightly, changed her mind and gave her head a tiny shake. "Once upon a time."

The Host rested his head on one hand, the fingers of the other drumming on the table top. He remained this way for a while and she didn't say anything in the interim.

"I can't help you." He said at last.

"Because I have no songs?" She asked.

"I believe that." The Host sighed. "I didn't two minutes ago but I believe that now. Not a good thing to learn this late in life. But even if you could sing... I wouldn't read your aura."

"Why not?" Again the quiet voice of someone lost.

"Because I'm terrified of what I might see."

"I had a song." The redhead said. "She was..beautiful. She had long, pale hair..blue eyes. A work of art, capable of many things." Her eyes glazed over as the familiar torture of memory worked through her. She was used to it by now. "A voice..well, not like an angel's. His was deep and quiet. Her's was..just like the rest of her. Caring. She cared so much, not like anybody else. Why, why not..was it part of what she was or was it part of who she was..I don't know."

The Host said nothing, just hearing the girl speak. He was a bartender, they're very good at that but this time it was different, this time he was also listening.

"She was strong..and fast. A protector and she had to pay and pay and pay simply because she wanted to live. She wanted a life, good times, bad times, tears and laughter and for these things, stuff everybody else expects, she had to pay. That's what made her..like .." Her voice faded away.

"She danced." The redhead said after a moment of silence. "She danced and spun and laughed when she could. Cried when she had too. But she never stopped..except for once and after that never again. We were happy you know? Despite everything we were happy. Lots of people told me that I couldn't really help her, that I should have gotten out of her way but I didn't listen, I didn't care I just had to be around her. She was addictive like that."

She again drifted off into silence and without a word, or even looking what he was doing, The Host made a quick drink and set it in front of her. She ignored it but gave him a nod of thanks. It did not ignore the offered beverage and, hopping onto the rip of the glass, dipped its beak into the concoction. It lifted its head and clicked it's beak together a few times, as if considering the taste. Then it bent back over the glass and gorged Itself.

"Then one day, something wonderful happened." The girl sighed. "And the next thing I knew we were dancing, together. Not only was I welcome but needed, like I had always needed her. And it was we who danced, and spun..and laughed." She rubbed her eyes with one hand. "And at its height, the crescendo of the music, when we thought the paying was finally over...Well. Then it ended. She was my song. I don't have any more."

"Yes." The Host nodded.

"But I came back."

"Yes."

"But you can't help me." The redhead sighed. She quietly chuckled to herself. "May your threads never be cut." She chuckled again, an empty sound. "False hope flesh."

The Host couldn't meet her eyes any longer.

It finished with the drink and clambered off the edge of the glass. Extended one wing, it shook the limb once, and a single black feather fell out to fall, without a sound on the top of the bar.

"Your payment I guess." The girl shrugged. "For the drink."

The Host eyed the feather like one would a large, nasty looking, snake.

The moment was shattered by the Karoke machine being cranked up to full power and a drunken gang of demons clambering on the stage. She and The Host both ignored the caterwauling. With a mumbled "What the hell." The Host snatched up the feather. If either of them were expecting some sort of reaction from the universe they were in for a disappointment.

The Host held the feather up before him, studying it closely. He turned it over and over under the harsh glare of the overhead lights. "Looks normal enough." He muttered. He moved his hand through the air, sweeping it back and forth and the air around the feather began to thrum and beat with every pass.

"The sound of wings." The Host still muttered. His knees then buckled, head snapping back as if someone had just shot him between the eyes. He tried to keep himself from falling, one elbow awkwardly snagging a tray of glasses that followed him to the floor, splintering into thousands of shards as they collided with the concrete. The commotion drew the attention all the people in the bar and the usual dull roar of a thousand conversations fell silent, even the 'persons' on stage stopped singing, letting the music track play on without them, now sounding foolish without a voice accompanying it.

The girl didn't do anything, didn't react in any way to the stares of many eyes upon her back. What did she have to be worried about anyway? Not like they could kill her.

A chair scraped across the floor as someone pulled away from their table, maybe bent on finding out what this stranger at the bar had done to everybody's favorite Karaoke demon.

The Host popped up from behind the bar looking none the worse for wear and sporting a huge grin. "Whoops!" He said loudly. "Gotta watch those slippery spots. Seems even I can have a bad day eh? Sorry about disturbing all you fine people. Next rounds on the house."

The resulting cheer banished any thought of violence or feelings of misgivings and as a few clientele made their way to the bar to receive their free drink The Host hastily scribbled something on a pad of paper and pushed it across the bar toward the girl.

"My advice? Go to that address. Now, no offense but...could you leave please? I had good reason to say I was terrified of what I might see..and I was right." He set the feather on the table. "Take that with you too."

"On one condition." The girl replied.

"That being?"

"Don't tell anyone. Not Angel, or anybody. Please."

"Fine." The Host nodded. "No, no explanations why or why not, I ..just can't care right now. You want it, you got it."

She nodded, scooped up the feather and piece of paper and crammed them into her pocket. It alighted on her shoulder and she turned to begin forcing her way through the growing throng of people moving to the bar. From behind her she could hear the Host's final words. "Ch'Hio Kai'CsKkull be kind!"

She ignored him. The Dead didn't need kindness. All they needed was time.

The sun would rise in a few hours. This much she knew even though the exact time was beyond her concerns. The night felt..heavy, bloated. Like a beast that has fed too much and needs to rest. Heavy the LA Night hung upon the city, ready to sloth off to a corner and rest while the day went about its doings. Then to spring upon the city again after the light had fled. But that was okay. Night..day..the environment didn't matter, the timing didn't matter. All that mattered was the goal.  
Most people argue that it's not the end of the journey, but how you got there that's important. Well. She had died. And here, on the other side of a dingy, dirty, apartment building that should have been condemned a long time ago...on the others side of the door she stood in front of, was, in theory, the ending of her journey.

She didn't give a damn about how she had gotten there.

The single naked bulb was the only illumination in the entire hallway. Waste, human and animal, crusted the cracks of the hall, and either end were shrouded in darkness. She had had to pick her way past more dregs of humanity while climbing the stairs. They lay scattered about the floor like flecks of rotten flesh. Sleeping in corruption, feasting on corruption and adding to, while becoming, corruption. At one time she might have sympathized. Now she was no longer able too. This close..this near..to the end, the driving, pulling, screaming inside had clouded out all other thoughts. She thought she had known need before, she thought she had experienced hunger and desire on hot nights before; in the arms of another, in the arms of friend, wife, lover... but this. This cry from deep echoes made everything before pale and vapid in comparison.

She shuddered.

There was no anticipation though. No tiny thrill at waiting just a little bit longer.

A little bit longer.

There was nothing, just the pushing. From inside.

Far away, at the end of the hall, standing on the sill of a broken window It watched. It always watched.

Her foot lashed out, impacting with the apartment door and blasting it clear off its hinges, across the room, now revealed to her, and impacting with the far wall. She stalked through the now broken doorway. She was ready for disappointment. She was ready for an abandoned place, a ramshackle, run down 'home' long left behind by the dark slayer, leaving only slight clues which would lead the redhead on and on and on.

So, she wasn't quite ready when, crossing the threshold she found exactly what she had been looking for.

Compared to the hallway the apartment was paradise. The plaster was fresh and white, not rotting and covered with garbage. The rug was clean, the windows intact. The furnishing looked old but comfortable. All in all, it was, somewhat pleasing if a small home. In the middle of the far wall, just missed by the flying door stood a television. It was on. It was playing the news. An easy chair sat centered in the room, directly across from the television and anyone who sat in it would have their back to the door. A fold down table was on the right side of the chair, covered in take out Chinese food boxes. On top of the television was a mirror.

She was sitting in the easy chair, and watching the television. Her long brown hair was done up in a loose scraggly bun that fell down, twisted and curled, over her shoulders.

"Faith." The redhead said in a flat voice.

It flew through the open door and across the room. It landed on the television set, beside the small mirror.

"Nice bird red." Faith said without getting up. "I should be terrified. I think. Coming back from the dead a three whole years later. You're not a vamp..that wouldn't be much fun anyway. But I should be terrified. Oddly enough, all I am is not very surprised."

"Get up."

"Okay." But Faith remained sitting. She was looking in the mirror, watching the redhead from her reflection. The Dark Slayer's reflected eyes met the girls. She could see the brown eyes crinkling around the edges, she knew the Slayer was smiling.

"Nice look Red. Wow. That is rather disturbing."

"Get. Up." The voice expressing barely restrained hate and blood lust. A hate and a blood lust strong enough to deny death itself..and she was holding it back.

"Alright, alright..don't get your panties in a bunch..." Faith chuckled. "You are wearing panties right? God, I hope they're not the same ones they buried you in..cause..yuck."

Faith shut off the television with her remote, rested her arms, thin, strong, pale arms, on the rests of the chair and awkwardly pulled herself to her feet. She didn't turn around for a moment. She just stood there.

"Turn around." The redhead snarled.

Faith obeyed.

She was not her best. Dark circles ran under her eyes and the bright, fiery passion, the brutality of life on the edge, that had lit up her eyes in years past, before becoming all consuming madness, was less so. Her shoulders were a little more bent and she looked rather pale. Her hair, before so dark and luxurious, was now stringy and thin. What little of it was actually hanging free.  
She was wearing blue sweat pants and a white tank top. Pale grey racing lines went up the sides of the pants. One time they might have been white, but time and too many loads of laundry had changed them. The tank top was also a bit dirty. Not filthy, but definitely not fresh off the shelf. A few stains of various sauces dotted the upper half, probably from the Chinese food.

All in all, Faith wasn't looking too good.

But that was not what made the redhead gasp. Faith's appearance had nothing to do with the incredible rage that had sustained her for so long, edged with hate, and boosted by pain just sliding away leaving an empty void inside the redhead. One that was quickly filling with sorrow.

No, what caused the girl to lose all sense of her goals, her mission on this earth; made her muscles weaken and begin to tremble; made tears of grief begin to pour over, and threaten to wash away her bloody black tears of rage, was how the tank top fit the dark slayer. Or..more exactly how it barely fit. How it rolled up and couldn't quite cover Faith's navel, because it was too small, and Faith's swollen, fat, pregnant belly...was too big.

"What can I say Red?" Faith smiled patting her large stomach. "I guess one of my 'Get Some, Get Gones' left a little something behind."


	6. Ceremony of Innocence

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre  
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;  
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;  
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,  
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;  
The best lack all convictions, while the worst  
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;  
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.  
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out  
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi  
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert  
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,  
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,  
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it  
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.  
The darkness drops again; but now I know  
That twenty centuries of stony sleep  
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,  
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

-Yeats

The windows were clean and offered, despite only being on the third floor, a fair view of the rest of the city. In the darkness, with all th lights on, it looked like an accomplishment. A triumph of mankind over the world and a safe haven from the elements where they, as a species, could grow and learn so as to better itself and one day take it's place among the stars.

Of course the city, in brutal reality, wasn't anything of the sort. A haven yes, but a place where small, scuttling things did gather in the gloom to feed and be fed upon. Black corners, hidden rooms, and obscured nests where the inhabitants did all sorts of things to and for each other that would have been, had they been witnessed by the light of day, surly been struck down by the hand of an angry god.

"Yeah. The views pretty nifty ain't it?" Faith said looking over the girls shoulder as she stared out the window. "It used to suck but the building across the street finally just collapsed a few months back. Viola, I got me a scenic thing to stare at."

She didn't say anything in return, just continued staring out the window. Seeing the city, hearing the city...tasting the city and thereby hating it.

"Ya sure yer not hungry? Cause I got some leftover Chinese. Junior here doesn't really go for all those spices." Faith patted her belly.

"No." The girl whispered. "I'm fine. Thanks for asking though."

"S'not a problem Red." Faith replied, collapsing back in her easy chair.

The brunette fumbled with the controller for a bit before finding the right button and the screen flashed to life with a buzz and than the sound of a laugh track flooded the room. Shifting in her seat a bit Faith picked up her coke and took a sip before letting out a contented belch.  
After that silence reigned for a few minutes, except for the sounds emitted from the television.

A girl stood by a window in a broken building that was itself at the edge of a broken city. She shared that room with the girl who had murdered her and she had come back herself to murder in return. They had exchanged a few words and now she looked out the windows while in the background there was laughter from people who probably hadn't been that entertained when they were first recorded. Somehow the laughter was appropriate.

People laughing.

And if they could have seen her they would have really laughed. Everyone would have laughed if they saw her. Why, if she happened to be on the outside and someone else in her place, she herself probably would have laughed at them. A little.

"Caffeine isn't good for the baby." She finally muttered.

"Hell Red, I gave up cigarettes for the parasite. No way in hell am I giving up my coca-cola." Faith snarled.

"Could cause birth defects though." The girl said.

"Nah." Faith sneered. "It's part Slayer. Gonna be all tough and rowdy for the big bad world."

"Ya hear mama in there junior?" Faith shouted, slapping her belly a few times. "Gonna be rowdy, just like your old lady. Rowdy I tell you!"

"A murderer like its mother?" She turned around so her back was to the window and she was not facing the Dark Slayer.

Faith gaped a little bit. "Is that what this is about Red? Coming back from the grave to avenge yer 'murder most foul'? Some shit like that?"

A voice from her memories echoed across her mind, she knew what her lover, her wife, would have said in her place, if she were here and the redhead on the other side. Her wife would have probably said something along the lines of : 'No, I came back to catch the latest Ice-Capedes.'

"Yes." The girl said simply. "That's what this is about."

Faith grimaced. "Not surprised. Well, if yer expecting me to be all..feeling bad about slicing you and B up..it's not going to happen."

She didn't say anything.

"So you came back? What for? I doubt to shake my hand and congratulate me on a job well done." Faith said. "Probably something a little more drastic. You came back to kill me didn't you."

She again remained silent. Not out of a sense of tact or reluctance, she was smart enough to know a rhetorical question when she heard it. Her eyes never left the Slayers.

"Do unto others as they've done unto you? Something like that Red?" Faith again sneered.  
"You think you got the stones for that?"

"I was a girl Faith." She said quietly. "I never had any stones and I still don't now."

Faith just snorted derisively.

"I was a girl in love. With another girl. Odd, or some would label us as such. Maybe even strike us with the term 'wrong' or 'deviant'. But that didn't matter to us. Because we loved each other, and from that love we were even going to have a baby. A daughter." Her eyes still never wavered from Faiths who, in turn, refused to look away either. "But you took that away from us."

"Oh spare me." Faith groaned. She broke eye contact by putting the back of her hand to her forehead, a mimicry of a 'damsel in distress'. "Why O'lord? Why did this have to happen? This cruelty and chaos, darkness and pain? What did we do O'Lord?" She snickered. "Is that what this is now Red? The part where you ask me 'why'?"

"We don't care why." The girl interrupted her.

Faith's jaw snapped shut with an audible click but she recovered quickly. "What's this 'we' shit Red? The 'Royal We' or something?"

The girl took a silent step forward and the Slayer's left hand twitched. "Where's the knife Faith?"

"Knife?"

"You know what I'm talking about Faith. The Mayor's present to you. The knife you held to my throat, the knife that Buffy buried into your gut, the knife you used to stab my wife from behind, the knife you used to slice me open before reaching inside and tearing my child from my womb, the knife you then used to slash my jugular and then spent hours using to torture Buffy before killing her." Her tone was flat, neutral, without a hint of passion or rage, neither rising nor falling as the list of atrocities was spelled out for Faith, still sitting in her chair; the television still playing.

"Oh." Faith blinked. "That knife. It's in the cupboard of that bookcase over there." She pointed to a small piece of furniture at the back of the room.

The redhead moved to step around the chair and Faith moved. Her left hand, the one that had twitched when the girl had first moved toward her, dove into the crack between the seat cushion and the armrest and emerged an instant later with her fingers wrapped around the handle of the very blade of discussion seconds earlier. The Slayer lurched out of the chair swinging. Faith may have been pregnant but she was still the Slayer and had the Slayer's gifts. Speed is only one of them and in this case it was enough.

The Redhead shrieked as white steel again buried itself deep in her flesh and tore across her abdomen in almost an exact parallel line of the scar she still bore. Her hands spasmed as actual pain and remembered pain joined forces and assaulted her mind. With a final wrenching tear Faith pulled the knife free letting the girl collapse to the floor on her knees, her arms wrapped around her now rent belly trying to stave off the flow of blood.

"Well shit." Faith cursed. "It's going to take forever to clean that up. But..God DAMN Red! God damn, God damn, God DAAAMMMnnnn!" The Slayer licked the edge of the knife. "Yum. Spicier than I remembered."

She slowly ambled around the stricken Redhead still curled up into a tight, bloody, ball on the floor. "Fuck me.." Faith murmured. Her breath rasped between trembling lips and her hand, the one still tightly gripping the knife, was shaking.

"Fuck me." She repeated. "I don't see what people have against sequels Red. As far as I'm concerned this one fucking rocks!"

She idly kicked the Redhead over and watched her convulsing on the floor. Faith slowly lowered herself down on her knees.

"Ouch." She said dabbing two fingertips into the spreading crimson pool. "See that dark stuff Red? Means I got your liver. You're gonna die, probably slowly..and painfully. But I got an offer for ya, what with the two of us going way back."

She hunched over till her lips were inches from the girls ear. "If you ask me real nice," She hissed. "I'll finish you off quick."

The girls head whipper around and her eyes blazed fury into Faith's. "No thanks." She laughed in the Slayer's face. "I think I'll stick around." And before the startled Slayer could react, the girl smashed her forehead into Faith's nose.

With a loud bleating cry Faith reeled back and fell on her ass. The roles were now reversed, the redhead standing tall over the other fallen girl.

"Sequels are actually pretty good Faith." The Redhead leered down at her. The black lines on her face emphasizing and enhancing the feral void of her grin. "If the plot differs enough from the original."

She examined the cut across the bottom of her shirt. "Well darn." She complained. "Tara's gonna be real upset, she let me borrow it and I get it ruined."

"As I was saying." The girl continued, turning her attention back to Faith. "Sequels can be quite good, and, as you no doubt have figured out the story has changed. Whaddya think?" She held up the base of her shirt revealing the new wound slowly sealing up in the direction it had been administered.

Faith held one hand over her injured nose. "Neat trick Red." She grumbled. "Nice headbutt too."

"Can I have the knife now?" The girl asked politely, holding out her hand.

"Been around a the block a few times Red." Faith said still holding her nose with her free hand. "Picked up a few things. Like how everything's connected!" Her voice rose to a shrill screech when she said 'connected' and she swiveled around and hurled her blade across the room.

It had landed on the television when she had first entered the apartment, flown across and taken roost there. It made sense, televisions were usually warm and it preferred warm places to rest just like anything else.

The knife flew from the Slayer's hand. Faith may have been pregnant, she may have turned from her duty and become a murderous, twisted mockery of her destiny. But she was still a slayer and she still had a slayer's strength and a slayer's eye.

The knife whipped across the space, end of end, glimmering and reflecting the gloomy light of the single lamp at the back of the room heading directly for the large, black bird on the tv. It had just enough time to cock it's head to the side before the blade struck it's chest dead center, burying itself amid a flurry of feathers, blood, flesh and bone.

Or..that is what would have normally happened had it just been an ordinary bird. But it was not an ordinary bird. It had been old when the stars were first imagined in the mind of the Watchmaker. It had done Its duty over the a space of time so great it could not be measured in time, but in terms of realities. To be attacked in such a base manner and to have one actually think that such an attack could be actually successful was a gross insult. An affront to Its position and role in this particular round of creation. Something terribly offensive that demanded restitution. Or it would have been, had It actually cared.

Which it didn't.

At most It was rather annoyed. It turned ungainfully on its feet to examine the the knife jutting from the wall, cracking the plaster, the end still vibrating slightly from the force of the impact. It hopped up onto the handle and stood there looking at the dark haired girl still sprawled on the floor. It shook It's head slowly, as if somehow disappointed.

It looked down at her, at Faith, and saw the slight sheen of moisture well up in the corners of her eyes. Fear settling in the hollow place at the bottom of her gut spreading cold fingers to push and probe at nightmares thought safely tucked away.

Not anymore.

Faith shook her head rapidly and wiped her eyes as if irritated by the ache in her nose. "I hate headbutts" She sniffed.

The redhead crossed the room, ignoring the quiet squelch of her boots as they trekked across blood soaked carpeting from her own belly, and pulled the knife out the wall. She carefully wiped the plaster dust off the blade with the edge of her shirt and tucked the knife into her jacket pocket.

Faith, in the meantime had pulled herself back to her feet and sat back down, wincing, into the large chair decorating the center of the room.

"You're scared Faith." The Redhead said moving to stand beside the seated girl. "You should be. You've lost."

"Not going to kill me Red. I know you, you couldn't do what I did to you. That takes a special kind of twisted and I know you're just not that way."

The Redhead whipped the blade out of her pocket and held it, edge down, so Faith's own dark eyes were reflected in the hard steel.

"You knew me Faith." The girl purred. "Past tense." Then she didn't say anything more, letting the brunette consider every way those last two words could be interpreted.

Still holding the knife in front of the Slayer's face she spoke again, slowly, her lips and tongue articulating lovingly every last syllable, almost caressing them. "A riddle for you Faith. 'I have a tongue yet no teeth or mouth, cut meat yet drink no wine. What am I?'"

"Can you guess for me Faith? Hmm?" The smile on her white dead face grew a little wider. The Slayer couldn't seem to look away from her own reflected eyes. She opened her mouth, swallowed, and tried again. "I..I don't know."

"Oh c'mon Faith." The Redhead whispered. "It's a game. Here's a clue, it's the only thing you ever loved."

Slowly the the dark haired girl turned her head to look up into the grinning face of the other. She didn't say anything for a few seconds. The only noise in the room once more the TV. Now the news was on and the anchorman was feigning concern as he read about the latest bouts of gang violence plaguing the perfect city of Los Angeles.

"A knife." Faith said finally.

"Very good Faith. A knife is the correct answer." And the Redhead turned the knife and ran the side of the cold metal over the rising swell and exposed flesh of the Slayers gut. She ignored the shudder that wracked over Faith's body as well as the gasp that accompanied it.

She felt nothing. Not a twinge of regret or worry. There was no pleading voice deep inside her, or even a the slightest questioning of her actions. Inside there wasn't even pain or rage. She was playing a role, filled with nothing. Grey, absolute like sheet metal was all she held within, flat and pitiless, not even the slightest ripple of difference or indifference. Just actions, reactions and things that had to be done. Even this realization though, of what she was, caused not the slightest tremor in her hand as it slid the blade along the rise, over Faith's navel and turning it so the point now scraped a white line down the other side over her flesh toward her pelvis.

With a yelp of pain Faith bolted upright and the Redhead yanked the knife away.

The Slayer's fingers buried into the soft material of the armrests and tore away great chunks of the fluffy material. Her muscles stood out in stark contrast, writhing and shifting under her skin as they became more and more tense. The lines of her neck bulging. At the same time a large stain spread slowly around the Slayer's crotch.

The Redhead strolled into the kitchen, arms crossed over her chest. "Either you just peed your pants Faith, or your water just broke. Don't move. I'll be right back."

"Push." The voice was flat and quiet. In no way comforting merely giving an instruction.

"Fuck you." Faith snarled. The girl reached around and slapped the Slayer's cheek. "That's no way for a mother to talk." She chastised.

The brunette was stretched out on the floor, on a white sheet. The Redhead crouched between her spread legs, a blanket and two bowls by her side.

"Push Faith." Again the command and the Slayer had no choice but to obey, her teeth grinding together and muscles tensing as her body reacted whether she wanted it to or not.

This had been going on for hours.

The sun had risen and set in the interim and in that time the Redhead had calmly and methodically prepared. First she had torn the phone out the wall so they would not be interrupted, nor allowing Faith any chance to arrange an interruption. Than she had carefully and precisely repaired the door, screwing it back onto its hinges and, as best she could, repairing the deadbolts. Those had proven a lost cause and she had settled for propping a chair under the doorknob. While doing all this she had allowed Faith to go through the joys of labor. Twisting about in her seat, spitting and cursing as waves of pain assaulted her, feelings as if a giant vice was slowly crushing the bones in her abdomen yet at the same time forcing something else open. The Redhead had had to intercept Faith when she tried to stumble across the room to the kitchen and grab a bottle of whiskey.

"That's not good for the baby." The Redhead had admonished as she casually plucked the bottle from Faith's hand and tossed it out the window. Then she had gone back to getting things ready. After that was completed she had carried the Slayer to the easy chair as if she were a babe herself and sat her down then turned up the volume on the television to drown out any sounds that might attract the neighbors..if there were any. Then pulling up another wooden one she had sat down to wait.

After the sun had set, a good eight hours since the labor had started, the Redhead had unceremoniously dumped Faith, who had drifted off into a fitful sleep, out of her seat and onto the floor.

Stripping the still groggy Slayer of her pants had proved little trouble. Faith had not resisted as the Redhead forced her legs apart and examined her. Maybe she had given up but the girl doubted it.

"I'm no doctor Faith." She had said. "I wouldn't have minded being given the chance but you saw to that didn't you?"

Faith didn't respond just lay with her head back trying to hold back the pain that had been growing steadily for the last day.

"So all I have is a few books I read in a pique of boredom way back when but..I'd say you're ready and even if you're not, I'm tired of waiting." The girl said in a deadpan voice.

And she had said for the first time the word that Faith was quickly growing to hate. "Push."

It had watched the goings on. Had not interfered in any way merely observed. Refraining from judgment until later, for now being seemingly content to let things proceed apace.

"Push. More." The girl commanded in a clipped voice. Taking a deep breath the Slayer held it and bore down.

"Good." The Redhead responded in the same flat voice. "Not much longer."

"You're...you're enjoying this aren't you Red." Faith gasped, sweat ran down her face and pooled in the hollow of her neck.

"I thought I would Faith." She replied evenly. "Ever since this began I was filled with such absolute.. hate and rage. Pain too. I was convinced that somehow seeing you hurting, or at least killing you would ease it, provide a balm of some sort. Now though, now I feel nothing, am getting nothing..there's no satisfaction here. This is just something I have to do." She looked up at the Slayer and her flat, green eyes reflected no light.

"I believe you." Faith whispered before letting her head fall back to land on the floor.

"That's nice." The Redhead said. "Now push."

Faith pushed.

"Push again." The girl commanded.

Faith complied wordlessly and the the baby was expelled from the Slayer's body with no fanfare or sense of accomplishment. It took in it's first lungful of air and began to wail loudly as only a newborn can do. If the Redhead noticed Faith's hand twitch at the sound of her child she gave no sign.

"Well, that's that then." The girl said and reached for the knife.

She carefully lifted it from the bowl of clorox bleach in which it had been soaking for the last hour, rinsed it off in the hot water and wiped it dry. Then she carefully cut the umblicical cord before dropping the blade back into the pot of water.

She picked up a blanket and cleaned off the screaming child as best she was able. Then taking another one she wrapped it up before handing it to it's mother.

"Congratulations Faith." She said in that same, dead voice. "It's a girl."

The silence was palpable, the television having been turned off long ago. Flat green eyes stared into defiant black ones and between them all a child screamed.

"A girl." Faith whispered.

"Yes. A girl. Just like mine, of course yours is alive."

"Good point." Faith said.

The Redhead crouched down next to mother and child and reaching out slowly, ran the fingers of her left hand through Faith's hair. The grime and oil of Faith's formerly shining locks coated her fingers but she ignored the feel and instead pushed the ribbon out of the Slayer's hair letting her curled, tangled hair fall free. She followed the the hair with her fingers down, down to the back of Faith's neck and let her fingers linger there, wrapping them slowly, firmly but in no way that would cause discomfort around the back of the Slayer's skull.

Faith said nothing.

Reaching out with her right hand she caressed Faith's cheek, once..twice...and on the third time again her fingers lingered, slipping, sliding, moved down the contours of the brunette's face until she gently cupped Faith's chin in the palm of her right hand.

"Say it Faith." She murmured.

"What?" Faith gasped back.

"I've given you all I can. Say it. Tell her, just once. That's all I can allow Faith. You have this once chance to tell her Faith how you feel."

They waited.

Faith's eyes glanced down to the child she held to her chest. She had stopped crying, Faith's daughter, and now her tiny hands fumbled about with Faith's tank top, as if somehow drawn by instinct to the what lay underneath. Then, moving steadily Faith's eyes looked at the other girl, holding her head in her hands. Her eyes stared at the scar tissue visible through the cut in her shirt, up over her breasts, her neck that Faith remembered her fingers wrapped around and steel sliding home, to her face. Her white face, pale, like chiseled marble; the eternal smile of ebony that twisted over and along the curves of her features accompanied by the black tears, up to those green eyes with less light in them then when she had watched the Redhead's life drain away that first time three years ago almost to the day.

And she chose.

Faith's lips curled up into her trademark smirk and she felt that cold comfortable slamming of the gate in her mind, locking away weakness, mercy and fear. She couldn't even feel the hot streaks running down her face anymore.

"At least I got to have my baby, Red."

Snap.


	7. Close the Windows When You Leave

This is not the End.  
Nor is it the Begining of the End.  
It is merely the End of the Begining.  
-Winston Churchill

Snap.

Tara Maclay broke her chopsticks as the crash of thunder seemed to explode directly over the house, cause the glasses to shudder and the panes of glass in the windows to rattle in their frames.

"Tense are we?" Amy mumbled around a mouthful of noodles. She was forking the brown, stringy things into her mouth as fast as possible.

Tara grabbed another set of chopsticks and poked at her food listlessly. "I guess." She answered quietly.

Another flash of white outside briefly disguised the night sky as the light of day and a split second later another peal of thunder seemed to crawl across the sky only to smash down onto the tiny house.

"Storm got you down?" Amy asked.

Tara nodded glumly. "It's just like the last one. You felt it didn't you? The building up."

"Yeah." Amy replied chewing contemplatively. She held up one of the take out boxes and scraped the remaining noodles on the bottom into a corner. "S'why I didn't do any magic today. Too unpredictable."

"Do you think.." Tara's voice drifted off.

Amy sighed, reaching out she took the blondes hand in one of her own. "Say it honey. It won't make any more or less true."

"Do you think it could be another?" Tara said. "Like...uh..her?"

Amy shook her head. "No. It was too fast this time. Before it took weeks, this all happened in a day. I don't think the storm is natural so..."

"She's coming back." Tara whispered.

"She's going home." Amy added.

The two girls looked at each other for a quiet moment. Not saying anything just feeling. A familiar cold had settled over the room once again. They had grown well acquainted with it since it had been added to their lives a few days before. Cleansing rituals and had helped some, getting back into the day to day aspect of life had also helped but remnants of it still lingered and, maybe, would never fade completely.

The silence was shattered like the sky seemed to do when the next crash of thunder came, the earth seemed to rock in protest before the storms assault.

Again Tara flinched but managed to not shatter her utensils. "Why exactly are we eating out again?" She asked changing the subject.

"We're not eating out." Amy relied waving her chopsticks in the air imperiously. "We're eating in the comfort of our own home since I destroyed dinner."

"Again." Tara added with a smile.

"Keep that up missy and no belly rubs for you!" Amy playfully snarled poking Tara's shoulder with her free hand.

"Promises promises." Tara stuck her tongue out at the other witch.

"Ooo! Let me catch that!" Amy leaned over the table.

Tara jumped back with a shriek. "Eewww! Your mouth is full..yucky, disgusting..get awaaayyy!"

She turned to run and Amy chased after her, sharing her mouth full of chewed noodles with the world, waving her hands in the air, while chanting "Blarggh blargh blarrraahhrraaa.."

"I won't let you kiss me like that!" Tara shouted back, they had run into the living room now. "Keep that up and you're sleeping on the sofa! Amy..I mean it!"

Amy stopped, swallowed. "What about now?"

Her voice purred and her smile was sweet with unspoken promises. Tara felt her lips smiling to match her lover's own. "You've still got some stuck between your teeth." She said quietly, allowing her lover to approach her.

"You'll take care of it." Amy whispered her arms reaching out to pull the other woman close. She was going to get rid of the cold, oh yes, she had plans to make things very anti-cold.

The doorbell rang.

"Shit." Amy muttered.

"I'll get it." Tara sighed.

"You don't have too." Amy said hopefully. Tara just leveled an even look at her and Amy's will buckled.

"Okay..you have too but that doesn't mean I have to like it." Amy answered herself with a pout, crossing her arms of her chest and collapsing on the sofa.

Outside the rain came down in hard, brutal cold lines, like arrows they hit the earth and more exploded than merely splashed. The wind whipped over the earth like a hunter, around corners, through the trees, pulling away leaves, tearing out bushes, tracking down and consuming the last vestiges of warmth, it seemed, on the entire planet.

It was onto this world that Tara opened the door. The rain stung her face and the wind pulled at her long hair, so carefully combed now hopelessly tangled. She didn't mind, she didn't have the attention to mind as all her thoughts were focused entirely on what she beheld at her feet.

"Tara baby?" Amy came up behind her. "Who is it? What's-" Her sentence died unspoken on her lips.

Tucked in the corner of the doorway, as far out of the 'mercies' of the elements as possible was a small basket. Wrapped in blankets to keep her warm she stared up at the two young ladies with black, curious eyes. She waved her tiny hands in the air as if trying to grab them. A certain blade lay next to the basket and pinned to the blankets carefully, so as not to blow away easily, was a note.

The two witches read the words written there over and over again.

It's over. Tell the others. Her name is Skye.

She trudged through the night, arms pulled tightly around her. She was cold, so very, very cold. Before she hadn't noticed the cold, it already was all inside her or burning rage. Either extreme, both were bad but at least she was never empty. Now it was all she was. Hollowed, gutted, cored from the inside out like an apple. Every time the wind tore past her part of her was afraid she break apart and be blown across the land.

She stumbled across the wet grass and past blackened trees that twisted and bent in the wind. The rain cut long slashes of chilling lines across her exposed skin, or pooled across the collar of her clothing, to trickle and slide down inside, leaving icy trails.

"Broke the rules." It was walking beside her, the messenger. Where she could barely stand it seemed untouched by the storm. It wore a long, brown, leather jacket that the rain water oozed right off of. Shreds of dry flesh, attached to his bones fluttered in the breeze. Around its neck it wore a bandanna that was so old it had turned grey and the tattered cowboy hat didn't budge from it's head, no matter how strong the wind blew.

"Saved the baby. 'Gainst the rules." It kept step with her easily. Not upset in any way by the tempest overhead.

"G'way." She whispered. She had little strength left. After leaving LA it had swiftly drained away from her limbs, this told her she had little time left.

"'Spose to avenge the dead. Y'know who I mean. Yerself, missy and the brat. Avenge them, not add to the family tree." It lifted a drowned stogie, held between skeletal figures and, somehow, deeply inhaled.

"Not too late." It said. "Could always go back. You have strength enough for that, witches would be easy, just knock em' on the head. Take care of the baby. She'll be a bad seed anyhow. Mother, daughter..too closely linked."

She stopped walking, struggling to remain upright against a the wind. She turned her head to stare at the messenger, eyes narrowed, teeth clenched. "Joking." She said hoarsely. "You have got to be."

"Don't joke." Two hollow eye sockets met her stare easily. "You go do it. Now. Or else you broke the rules. Once we can let go. Twice, no way. Do it, or you don't get your puppy." It's skeletal grin somehow grew wider. "Wouldn't that be a shame."

She turned her back on it and resumed her slow gait.

"Mistake Red." It called after her. "All this for nothing then. Regrettin' for eternity ain't a fun thing either!"

She ignored it and continued on her way.

The was a flash of lightning, a crack of thunder. The messenger was gone, not even leaving footsteps to mark its passage in the dancing grass.

She stepped through the gate,rusty hinges screeching in the storm as the wind blew it open and shut again, open and shut. She moved past stones, memorials and tombs. She approached the base of the hill and painfully, slowly, began to climb it.

It was a small hill, a ten year old child could have run over it and back in under a minute but for her, her it was a grey, granite slab, going straight up a thousand, thousand miles.

The storm howled, lightning rent the sky, leaping from cloud to cloud, or cloud to earth, thunder smashed the planet like hammers, all these furies focused on her, to deny her access, to bar her way and impede her path. She ignored them, taking it one step at a time, head bowed, red hair pasted to her skull by the torrential, continuous downpour.

She slipped and muddy rainwater, ran between her fingers; when she fell on her hands and knees, making cold, dead fingers even colder. Pulling herself to her feet she took another step and again the earth cheated her, sliding out from beneath to send her tumbling, rolling, flailing, to the base.

She didn't say anything. She sat up, wiped the mud from her face, clambered to her feet and started over.

She collapsed in front of her grave a short time later. The dirt and shattered coffin lid still jutted from the earth like a maw, patient, waiting, ready. Ready for her to dive and take back her rightful place among the dark, the worms and maggots.

She tried to rise. Couldn't. Her legs wouldn't hold her anymore. Letting gravity have it's way she sank over and her cheek rested again cold stone. With a trembling hand she traced the letters of her beloved's name.

"Got her Buffy." She whispered. "Got her. But I had to break the rules. Maybe I lost you. But you wouldn't have wanted me like that anyway right? No. No you wouldn't have wanted me to do what she did. Couldn't have lived..died with myself. So..so I think I did the right thing. Even if they don't agree and said I broke the rules. You always broke the rules right? Couple of renegades right? That's us. Do what's right. Even if we're told otherwise. Wait for me okay?"

Her arm, bereft of any strength fell into a small muddy puddle at the base of the grave. It made a small splash that was swallowed up by the storm.

It rained.

It rained and tore and screamed.

The storm.

Dark clouds rolled across the heavens like armies sweeping warmth and light before it like chaff. Rain fell in waves, icy sheets of water that sucked the very warmth from the air as it passed. Twisting and changing the usually benevolent, soft warm breath into a gusty, chilled monstrous wind that would shriek between and over houses. Worming its way into houses, sliding under bed covers, causing those deeply asleep to shudder violently and seek out a warm neighbor to cuddle against.

It was a cold night.

Lying next to a cold stone, drowned in cold rain, and consumed by cold wind, a cold girl closed her green eyes and died.

Again.

Somewhere else a gate opened.

"Quiet you!" A soft voice spoke. "I swear sometimes you are just such a handful."

"Banful." A child's voice replied.

"Shhhh!" The first insisted. "Mama's sleeping. You don't want to wake her do you? She's very tired."

"Ma ma ma banful ma ma ma banful ma ma ma." The child babbled, clapping together small chubby hands.

The storm had passed. Shredded tatters of clouds were high in the sky but the rest was clear. The full moon beamed down from its apex in the great dome, and as mist rose from the cold grass the world seemed to pale and fall away from absolutes. There was a very something in the air and all sorts of maybes felt now was a good time to come out and play.

Fireflies danced from a hollow log, leaving soft arcs and twirls to mark their passage. A few night creatures, the undead, scattered around the town of Sunnydale felt an odd stirring in the back of their minds. A warning keen behind the eyes and, for reasons even unknown to them, they fled for their dark barrows, hidden pockets of black and shadowed lairs. Fleeing as if some white hunter was now loosed; maybe it was.

Other night creatures, less supernatural, began creeping through the now warm dark. Here a raccoon searched through a garbage bin seeking dinner, there several dogs playfully wrestled under a streetlamp. A woman with insomnia turned off the late late late movie, went outside, sat on her porch and looked at the stars. She hadn't done that for years, ever since she was a little girl. A father rose from his sleep and quietly crept around the house; easing open the doors to his children's room he watched them sleep. The steady breathing, soft and quiet, peaceful. He could hear it. Smiling he went back to his own rest, assured that for now all was well in his world.

The blonde crouched down next to the still, silent form of the redhead. Opening her arms she let her daughter scramble free.

"Ma..snore?"

The blonde chuckled. "Not often baby. Sometimes." She winked at her daughter.

She reached out an arm tentatively. Only a slight tremor betraying her anxiety. When her fingertips met the wet material of the redhead's jacket her sigh of relief was audible.

"Wake up." She whispered shaking the girls shoulder gently. "Time to wake up sleepy head."

Nothing happened.

"C'mon lover. Time to get up. Can't stay away forever you know." She gave the redhead's shoulder a vigorous shake this time.

There was a slight moan.

"C'mon baby, c'mon back. It's time to go." The blond whispered. She bent down and kissed the redhead's white, cold, cheek, letting her lips linger.

It was a small thing, the kiss. It crested something though. Broke a spell, shattered chains or maybe even was something the universe was waiting for. Either way it was just the right thing at just the right time.

Willow opened her eyes.

"Buffy?"

"Hi there." Buffy Summer's blue eyes twinkled and her friendly smile was brighter than the full moon overhead.

"You..you're really.." Willow's voice drifted off.

The moment was disturbed by her shriek of agony. She hid her face in her hands, curling up into a tight ball on the ground.

"Don't look at me." She moaned from between her fingers. "Don't look at me, I'm ugly and foul and nothing's left inside me but pain and you don't need to see me like this. Please..just...please..it's only pain and pain and pain.."

The back of her hand caressed Willow's cheek and though she shuddered at the contact, the redhead did not pull away.

"I know baby." The blonde murmured. "I know, but that's over now. Duty is over, waiting is over. It's time go to home, leaving this behind. You've been waiting for so long Willow. We've been waiting. Now we're done."

Willow turned around swiftly letting her hands drop so her lover, her wife, could see, plainly on her face what she had become. She was going to show her the black smile, the dark tears, the pale, dead, empty visage that she had been wearing for..it felt like eternities now..piled up upon each other.

"How can you stand me?" She screamed. "I've...I'm...Just look at me! Look what I've become. Look at this hideous mask and I can't take it off and I don't even know if I want to take it off. How can you stand me? How!?"

The blonde stepped closer to her wife, not put off by the storm on the outside or the storm on the inside, in the slightest. She reached up and gently cupped her love's face in her hands. Willow couldn't help but flinch again. She wanted this so much, this touch, this peace but she couldn't take it. Not when she looked like this, when all the was, was this.

"What mask?" Buffy breathed gently. The pads of her thumbs moved softly over the lines of a black smile and where they passed, the shard was gone. Cold white became warm living under Buffy's touch. She gently rested her fingertips of both hands at the edge of Willow's forehead and slid them down, down...over her eyelashes and eyes, again erasing the black from the face of the Redhead.

"No more tears." She whispered. "Never more any tears."

Buffy brought her face even closer, closing her eyes.

Willow knew what she wanted, she knew what she herself wanted too. She let it happen.

They kissed.

A key turned in a lock, a path that had dominated for too long was left behind.

An ending came about.

They kissed and the last of deep wounds, stopped their bleeding at last and began to heal.

They kissed and it was as good and sweet as any or all before.

They kissed and they wanted more.

It ended.

And started again. A few quiet burst of laughter would occasionally interrupt but be overwhelmed. Than there would be quiet sobs of joy and they too were eased aside as well.

They kissed, and touched and laughed and even, one last time, cried.

"Mama n' Dada..ki..kiss'n tree." A child's voice sang.

Willow's eyes shot open and she pulled back a fraction of an inch and stared, not really seeing and not really believing what she heard.

Buffy nodded a touch, just a bit. The slightest movement of her head. "Behind you." She mouthed the words.

Turning around slowly Willow saw her.

She was standing there with her hands awkwardly clasped behind her back, looking at the ground. She had short red hair that ended just at her shoulders. She was wearing a light blue jumper with a pink bunny rabbit on it and looked all of three years old.

"Baby?" Willow choked out. She turned back to see Buffy nodding at her, her face smiling so widely it was fit to split apart.

"Ours?" Willow asked again.

"Yes." Buffy said.

"She's beautiful." Willow's voice went up an octave catching in the back of her throat.

"She's waiting." Buffy added nuzzling Willow's neck with the tip of her nose.

Willow pulled herself up to her knees and patted them a few times to get the younger girls attention.

Looking up slowly the girl smiled at her shyly. "Mama?"

Willow could only nod and hold open her arms.

"Mama!" The girl cried and ran into her hug.

Buffy looked down at her wife holding their daughter for the very first time and felt tears of her own beginning to stir. She treasured them because she knew this would be the final time anyone in her family..her family..would ever cry again. There were no more reasons for them to do so.

It was warm now. Warm for Willow and Buffy and their child. Warm, golden, safe and far away.

Somewhere else.

Silently, without sound, the gate swung shut.

"Papa say I a banful!"

Dawn came painting the sky a field of roses. It was perched on the twisted branch of a dead tree overlooking the cemetery. The air was thick and sweet. Living things seemed to be particularly abundant on this day. Even its tree was was affected. For at the tips of branches that had been bare for many years, buds were beginning to swell, and grow.

It watched the cemetery and the sun. It watched the light of the sky change from pink to white and then to blue. It watched the sun burn away the mists that coated the earth, It watched the dew sparkling in the light like a field of gems scattered in the grass. It watched all these splendors of life at play, rejuvenation, resolution, and resurrection. It watched the coming of a new day, like fresh, clean paper waiting for the next part of a great story to be written on it.

It didn't care either.

It watched a small procession of people ease open the gate to the cemetery and walk up a small hill to a specific headstone. The party was lead by a older man. He looked respectable and was dressed in his Sunday best. Then again he always appeared to be in his Sunday best, even when it wasn't Sunday. Spectacles reflected the sunlight beaming down from above. He walked slowly and carefully, mindful of the woman on his arm.

She was also in her mid forties. Dirty blonde hair that reached just below her shoulder blades with long bouncy curls. A billowing white dress was her only apparel. She walked slowly as well, her left arm around the waist of the gentleman beside her. They were both being very careful as they walked up the slippery grass of the small hill. What with her being very, very pregnant.

Behind them were another couple. A younger man, in his mid twenties. He had a shock of black hair that was cut short. Also dressed in a jacket with a turtleneck underneath and tan slacks. His step was solid and sure, broad shoulders completed the appearance of man. His face though, that's what was different. He smiled, always it seemed. A small smile that was there continuously. He smiled at the rising sun, the flowers, the blonde who had her arm hooked around his. He smiled like a man who had forgotten how to smile for a very long time and now, having remembered, was making up for lost time.

The woman beside him was dressed well. A white blouse and grey skirt. A golden necklace hung around her throat and matching earrings glittered in the light. Her hair was also dirty blonde and she was only looking at the man at her arm. She was watching him smile and smiling herself. She had missed this, her man's smile and was intending to soak up as much of as possible. She had been locked in a dark room, but now the sun was out and she was drinking it in. On her other arm she carried a picnic basket.

The final piece of the picture of these two younger lovers, following behind their elder counterparts, were the rings they both wore. Simple gold bands on the second fingers of their right hands. The sun's rays seemed to want to play with these decorations the most and with every step these two took a reflected bit of light glimmered about the gold and bounced off joyfully to be scattered about the sky.

Bringing up the end were the last two lovers. One blond, one bruntette, one with long hair that ended at the small of her back, the others just below her shoulder blades. The first girl was carrying a child, an infant, new to this world and so full of potential. The child herself was sucking greedily at bottle full of warm milk. The blondes lover, walked beside her, eyes switching from watching the child, to watching her partner. She had one arm around the other witches shoulder making sure she stepped in the right direction as all her partner's attention was devoted to the child in her arms.

It watched them spread out a blanket before the smooth, undisturbed grass before a specific headstone. It watched them reach into the picnic basket and pull out sandwiches and other foods. These they ate quietly. Snatches of brief conversation could be overheard. When the food was done everyone took turns holding the infant but she began to cry so was given back to her 'mother'. The long haired witch did seem to have soothing effect on the babe that none could match.

It watched them talk. About friends, adventures, times in the past, people lost and lives saved. Sometimes they laughed. Occasionally they cried. Even the young man succumbed to a few tears though he insisted it was just his 'allergies'. Everyone knew better but did not push the issue.

It watched them, despite the early hour, take out a bottle of champagne and open it. Even the Witches had some. It watched them raise a toast to those that had gone on before, those that they loved but were gone now. They talked some more, telling stories, laughing, and again, crying.

It watched them bury their dead.

It watched them let go.

It watched them keep on loving them.

And if they noticed It watching them from a far off branch on a not-so dead tree none in that party said so.

Not that It would have cared either way.

A warm morning breeze moved across the land and, spreading its wings, It allowed the wind to carry it off. Ancient wings beat against the currents of air, sending it flying through the skies of a world that, in comparison with It, was a mewling babe.

Higher and higher it flew until finally the currents of ether blew behind it and lifted it away. There were worlds to fly, spheres drifting in the night like fine crystal charms. And each of these worlds burned with souls. Numbers so great they dwarfed the number of stars on the first day of creation.

They cried for Vengeance these burning souls. They cried out in pain, in rage and in hate. They cried out for an agent, a power, a Judge. Something, anything, to help them put the wrong things right.

The bus pulled into the Sunnydale depot. The girl getting off was attractive in a tomboyish way. Close cropped black hair accentuated fine Asian features. Her build was slim and athletic if someone on the short side. She walked with assurances of someone who had a pretty good idea of what she was capable of. Almond colored eyes took in, what she imagined, would be her new home for the rest of her life; however long that lasted. The driver walked around the side of the bus and opened the luggage compartment. Without preamble she reached inside and lugged out her duffel bag. It dwarfed her small appearance and must have outweighed her by twenty pounds. She carried it like it weighed nothing at all. Moving to a shadowy corner she quickly inspected the contents of her luggage, indeed everything she owned. It all seemed to be there.

'Good.' She thought to herself zipping the monstrous bag shut and slinging it over her shoulder.. 'First things first then. I have to report in to my Watcher. If I were Mr. Giles..where would I be? Maybe the library...'


End file.
